John Manley and Lloyd Axworthy weigh in on Conservative ‘economic diplomacy

The federal Conservative government says it is harnessing the entirety of Canada’s diplomatic power to advance the country’s trade interests.

The move, formally announced Wednesday, is being billed as a historic shift in this country’s approach to the world, and is already being applauded by some of the country’s largest business groups.

Others say the idea is riddled with problems.

Postmedia News talked to former industry minister John Manley, now head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a member of the advisory panel that helped the government draw up the plan, and former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, now president of the University of Winnipeg, about the government’s new “economic diplomacy.”

The government says it is harnessing all of Canada’s diplomatic assets to support the pursuit of commercial success by Canadian companies and investors. Do you agree with this approach?

“In some markets, what they’ve called economic diplomacy is vitally important and has a significant bearing on the success in gaining entry by Canadian firms. So in those markets it’s very important. It’s interesting to note Businessweek called Hillary Clinton the best commerce secretary the United States ever had because she spent a lot of her time making the kinds of efforts that I hope the Canadian government will try to duplicate.”

Is Canada catching up to what other countries are doing?

“I think it’s formalizing something that many diplomats understood to be part of their responsibility already. And I think that underscoring is valuable and important. If you want to encourage certain outcomes, you need to incent the behaviour that produces it. So I’m assuming here that by making this statement, support for commercial activities will come into the evaluation process for ambassadors and high commissioners and others.”

Why is this important?

“We’re a relatively small country in population terms. And yet we’re now the 11th-largest economy in the world. You don’t have a small country with the 11th-largest economy without building it on the basis of a lot of trade. That’s how we pay the bills. So I think it’s vitally important.”...

This has been exerpted from the 27 November 2013 article by PostMedia, and is availalble at: http://o.canada.com/news/john-manley-and-lloyd-axworthy-weigh-in-on-conservative-economic-diplomacy/