Harper’s Heroic Ukraine Message Does Not Reflect Reality
Globe & Mail As Prime Minister Stephen Harper heads to Europe for the G7 summit and anniversary of D-Day, the gap between Canada’s...
Paris and Owen: Imagining A More Ambitious Canada
Ottawa Citizen The world has undergone enormous changes since Ottawa last conducted a foreign policy review nearly a decade ago: the...
Is Canada Pulling Its Weight in NATO?
When NATO’s military commander, General Philip Breedlove, visited Ottawa this week, he noted that Canada was one of the first countries...
Ottawa’s Embrace of Twitter Diplomacy Will Fail Without Greater Openness
Globe and Mail After years of sitting on the sidelines, Canada finally seems to be taking digital diplomacy seriously. Foreign Minister...
Kabul’s Restaurant Attack Hurt by Driving Afghans, Foreigners Further Apart
Globe and Mail Since news broke of Friday’s horrific suicide attack on the largely foreign clientele of a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul,...
Baird’s tough talk on human rights rings hollow in Bahrain
Globe and Mail Canada’s “principled” foreign policy keeps running into problems in Bahrain, the Gulf monarchy that violently suppressed...
There Is More to Foreign Policy than Trade
The problem with Canada’s new Global Markets Action Plan is not that it seeks to promote Canadian commercial interests in foreign markets...
Missing in Action: What Happened to Canada’s Foreign Policy?
CIPS & CIC blogs In July 2011, shortly after Canadian voters handed the Conservatives a majority government, Prime Minister Stephen...
A Response to Deepak Ohbrai on Digital Diplomacy
I am pleased that Deepak Ohbrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has responded to my recent writing on...
Canada Needs More Digital Diplomats
Ottawa Citizen The practice of international diplomacy is undergoing a revolution. As activists, private and public organizations,...
Baird’s East Jerusalem scandal shows Canada has a Mideast dishonesty gap
Globe and Mail Why is Foreign Minister John Baird misrepresenting Canada’s policies on the Mideast? Last week, Mr. Baird met with...
Baird's Silence on Abuses in Bahrain Exposes Canada's Inconsistency
Globe & Mail The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper prides itself on having a “principled” foreign policy and for taking...
CIDA Merger is Fine, But Fundamental Questions of Policy Remain Unresolved
Globe & Mail Thursday’s announcement that the Canadian International Development Agency will be folded into the Department of Foreign...
Staying out of Iraq was said to hurt Canada’s standing. It didn’t
Globe and Mail In the weeks leading up to the disastrous invasion of Iraq a decade ago, a number of prominent Canadian commentators and...
A Not-So-New Foreign Policy Plan
The Harper government’s “secret” foreign policy plan, revealed by the CBC today, offers few surprises. Its emphasis on pursuing economic...