“We’re Back”: Re-imagining Public Diplomacy in Canada

Abstract

The central purpose of this chapter is to examine the claim that the Trudeau government has re-committed Canada to a broad and enduring strategy of public diplomacy, a return to traditional Canadian values, and a renewed enthusiasm for the principles and practices of multilateralism. It begins with a critique of the underlying principles of the Harper government concerning its foreign policy strategy and their decision to scale back on public diplomacy efforts and outlines Mr. Trudeau’s early moves to deliver on his election promises. The paper goes on to argue that, despite the Prime Minister’s best intentions, the election of President Trump in 2016 and the disruptive trade policies that followed created an existential threat to Mr. Trudeau’s new government. In effect, this forced the Canadian government to focus its attention on securing a trade agreement with the United States at the expense of most other issues. Further, this chapter argues that the ‘new public diplomacy,’ such as it is, has a particularly strong bias toward situating Canada and its values within the North American context and that these core values reflect the priorities outlined by the Trudeau government in its early days. In short, while Trudeau displayed a genuine interest in re-invigorating Canadian public diplomacy, what he delivered, with some key exceptions, is better seen as a systematic and careful redefinition and some repurposing of Canada’s existing public diplomacy tools.