Why is Canadian diplomacy so much more successful abroad than at home?

A little while ago I was able to attend an event put on by the University of Toronto Political Science Student Union, a discussion on `real-world' Canadian Diplomacy. It was a pretty impressive event; Michael Kergin, Canadian ambassador to the US (and who was ambassador during and after 9-11) was one participant, and David Wright, who was amongst other things Canadian ambassador to NATO during the war in Bosnia was the other.

The discussion was instructive, but it left me with at least one major question; why is Canadian international diplomacy so much more successful than Canadian local diplomacy? Why does a country which has long history of successes in selling its vision of disarmament to the world, which continues to this day, have such trouble selling a vision of Canada at home? Why does a nation that has such sophistication in pursuing negotiations abroad have such a disasterously ham-fisted approach locally?

It should be obvious that this isn't an idle question. With the new leader of the PQ promising to call a referendum as soon as possible, and with others happy to fan the flames of Alberta discontent for short-term gain, this is a question of immediate importance. Finding a practicable answer is made the more difficult by the fact that the federal Liberals have made direct government selling of Canada to Canadians basically radioactive for a generation.

The dichotomy between international diplomacy and intranational diplomacy is real, and striking. Surprising for many Canadians is the importance of Canada's diplomatic role in the Cold War; probably less suprising is Canada's role in the UN, or the International Criminal court. This level of (successful) particpation in major international diplomacy has always been part of Canada's history; indeed, it's interesting to see how much more sophisticated and participitory Canadian foreign policy was throughout the first part of the 20^th century than, for instance, Australia's was, despite the fact that the two countries were of similar size and had related histories.

However, one can take a look at cases where essentially the same policies are advocated for in both the international and local realm, and see the differences. Compare the success of Canadian international environmental diplomacy with much less succesful job of selling at home. Whether it is the Kyoto protocol or the Montréal protocol, much effort is (rightfully) extended in the field of international diplomacy to try to meet Canada's interests in these issues, but little or no effort is made to convince Canadians or even the provinces on these issues.

This has been noticed by others. Clues as to what is going on might lie in Canada's lagging in `public diplomacy'. While Canada's foreign policy is becoming more inclusive, and is allowing citizen groups and NGOs to play more of a role, there is little or no effort into public diplomacy — selling `ordinary people', rather than fellow diplomats, on issues of interest to us. This is true both domestically and abroad; the most rudimentary of foreign public diplomacy programs, things like cultural and educational exchanges are not a high priority and are being cut back.

There are likely historical cause for this rather imbalanced approach. Canada's long history of having to engage in diplomacy with its continetal neighbor the United States over very basic matters doubtless shaped a much stronger foreign diplomacy over its history than it would have had otherwise (such as, for instance, island nation Australia).

On the other hand, this success in government-to-government diplomacy does not automatically carry over to government-to-citizens diplomacy. Indeed, Canadians are very distrustful of such an approach. The very basic idea of `projecting Canadian values' is rather controversial. Canadians are distrustful of anything that smacks of propaganda, and are now very likely to be distrustful of anything involving the government and public relations firms.

But we have to learn to start doing this, and doing this well. Whether it is citizen-to-citizen or some other approach, there is much to be gained. Consider `diplomacy' with Quebéc. The following somewhat suprising article from Opinion Canada, makes strong points about what we have to work with:

• Seven out of ten Quebecers report being very or somewhat attached to Canada.
• Only 34% would vote yes to their province becoming a completely independent country with no ties to Canada.

Almost all of the rest of support for separatism in Quebéc is very soft, and varies very strongly depending on the wording of the question. A strong, competent public diplomacy push could move referendums and separatism off the table for a generation. Canada needs to learn how to do this.