Derek H. Burney: Good luck with these foreign policy challenges, Mr. Trudeau – National Post

Foreign policy issues were not prominent during the election but there are now significant challenges ahead especially on trade, national security, climate change and relations with the U.S. and China that present opportunities that would enhance the national interest. As a general principle, instead of proclaiming smugly that the world needs more Canada, the government should assert clearly how and why Canada needs more from the world.

On trade, we need to concentrate on ratification of the USMCA. While Canadas influence on Congress will not be significant, we should not hesitate to register firmly with all American interlocutors in government and business that early ratification is very much in Americas interest, as well as that of Canada and Mexico. As demonstrated by the cut and run from northern Syria and the chaos that ensued, President Donald Trump may become even more impulsive should impeachment threats intensify in coming months. Any threat to abrogate NAFTA in the absence of ratification should be firmly resisted recognizing that ultimately this is a matter for Congress to decide.

The best way to temper our excessive dependence on the U.S. market and our vulnerability to the proclivities of American politics is trade diversification, not as a substitute but to provide more balanced and more certain opportunities for economic growth. Specifically, Canada should broaden its trade footprint in markets like the EU, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and others in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, where we have preferential trade agreements. We should also move swiftly to negotiate a free trade agreement with a post-Brexit Britain emulating as much as possible the provisions of the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement. As well, a new strategic priority on trade should be given to India and to the fast-growing economies of Africa.

On national security, we should explore the prospects of joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence system for North America. In todays world that would provide the essence of security and is an advantage on defence that many other countries would envy. It would also serve to rejuvenate the otherwise rather dormant NORAD. Canada should bolster its military in order to strengthen its commitment to NATO and give us needed credibility to help reposition NATOs purpose.

We should explore the prospects of joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence system for North America

Recognizing that cyber security is, according to many experts, the most serious threat to global stability, Canada needs to overhaul our strategy and our organizational capacity to manage this unrelenting challenge one posed against us most provocatively by China and Russia. In a similar vein, we need to repair serious breaches in our intelligence operations so as to deny further degradation of standing within the Five Eyes alliance exclusive intelligence sharing with the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

On climate change, we should not allow our position to become a prisoner of inflexible, hyperbolic rhetoric. Canada is 1.6 per cent of the global emissions problem. We are and will continue to be a resource-based economy. Unless there are serious commitments by such major emitters as the U.S, China and India, there will be no realistic solution on a global scale. That is why it would be economic suicide for Canada to act unilaterally. A better tactic would be to encourage U.S. re-engagement as the first step towards timely and more realistic commitments from the U.S., China and India, among others. Instead of more self-congratulatory global conferences that do little to move the needle, the climate challenge calls for hard-headed negotiation by credible negotiators who can gauge the economic as well as the environmental implications of commitments, and not activists whose efforts may generate headlines but tend to be more aspirational than consequential.

Management of relations with the U.S. will always be a top priority for Canada

Management of relations with the U.S. will always be a top priority for Canada. Along with ratification of the USMCA and exploration of participation in the anti-ballistic missile system, we should seek to negotiate with the U.S. a more comprehensive Safe Third Country Agreement on refugees. The ultimate test of sovereignty for any country is the ability to control its borders. With the Trump administration there may be little scope for any pragmatic negotiation and even less in an election year but staunching the flow of illegal refugees into Canada is a key responsibility for the federal government.

Relations with China are deadlocked in the face of outright bullying by the Chinese authorities actions that contravene basic tenets of international law. Canada cannot avoid searching for ways to break the current imbroglio and return to a level of civility but we should never sublimate our fundamental concerns about human rights in order to curry favour with China. Nor should we adopt a rose-coloured view of Chinese behaviour. We have to learn to deal with the ascending and increasingly arrogant global giant as it is rather than as we would like it to be. That is the essence of diplomacy.

Given the lopsided nature of our trade relationship, we do have some leverage with China. If the U.S. succeeds in negotiating bilateral agreements on trade to curtail theft of intellectual property and to prevent forced diversification of foreign technology, Canada should move to secure similar assurances from China as well as improved prospects for access to the worlds second largest economy.

The fundamental pillars for any Canadian government are prosperity, security and national unity. Concrete foreign policy moves as suggested above would serve Canadian interests on each of these pillars and, at the same time, reinforce our basic democratic values.

Derek H. Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, is the co-author of a new book: Braver Canada: Shaping Our Destiny in a Precarious World, published byMcGill-Queens University Press.

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Derek H. Burney: Good luck with these foreign policy challenges, Mr. Trudeau - National Post