Hell or High Water

by Paul Martin

  One of the last issues I dealt with as prime minister relating to the Middle East was the taking of hostages in Iraq. On November 26, just two days before the government fell on a motion of non-confidence, four peace activists were snatched from the streets of Baghdad and held as hostages. James Loney from Toronto and Harmeet Singh Sooden, who had lived in Montreal, were members of the Christian Peacemakers, as were the other two hostages, an American and a Briton. Soon the hostage-takers were demanding the release of all U.S. detainees. I had appointed Dan McTeague as parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs with special responsibility for Canadians abroad. Although the department wasn’t always happy with his energetic advocacy for Canadians caught up with problems in other countries, his appointment made sure that there was a degree of political accountability and pressure on consular matters — a sometimes neglected aspect of our foreign responsibilities. Even as the election campaign was launched, he continued to devote a great deal of time to the cases of Loney and Sooden. Dan and I both spoke with the families on a number of occasions.

  At one point Jim Wright, who was handling the file at foreign affairs, notified me that the Americans thought they had located where the hostages were being held. We already had Foreign Affairs, CSIS, and RCMP personnel on the ground in Jordan and in Baghdad. However, they were asking for assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces, to provide intelligence and secure communications. This obviously created a political and diplomatic issue, since the presence of Canadian soldiers on the ground could be misconstrued as participation in the American-led mission in Iraq. Still, there were Canadian lives involved and we decided to deploy the small number of military personnel required, but not in uniform.

  The hostages were still in captivity when I left office. In early March 2006, the tortured body of American hostage Tom Fox was found. Eventually, at the end of March, a rescue team, including some Canadians, stormed the house in which they were being held and released the three remaining hostages, including the two Canadians, James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  From Gleneagles to Hong Kong

  Like most prime ministers, I always intended to take a lead role in shaping my government’s foreign policy. It is a bit of a puzzle to me why the Foreign Affairs Department, once the intellectual heavyweight of the public service, does not have the capacity it once did to generate ideas and shape public policy, for it still contains many of the brightest people in government. It may be that a combination of globalization and the ease of modern communications allows departments such as Environment, Transport, Agriculture, Finance, and so on to deal directly with their foreign counterparts, leaving Foreign Affairs as something of a bystander. It is also true that policy making in most areas has gradually been centralized in the Privy Council Office — a process that began in earnest under Pierre Trudeau. Probably only Finance, among the most important policy departments, has fully retained its independent capacity through the recent decades.

  In any event, so far as Foreign Affairs was concerned, I largely worked through my foreign policy adviser in the PCO, Jonathan Fried, a distinguished Canadian diplomat who had come to assist me on international issues as G7 deputy when I was at Finance. Jonathan was an expert on trade policy, having been deeply involved in the negotiations on NAFTA, but also had a very broad perspective on foreign affairs. I soon learned of his encyclopedic knowledge both of the files he had to deal with and of the key players around the world.

  Proof that the policy-making capacity of Foreign Affairs had to be strengthened came after I commissioned the departments with focused international responsibilities — which also included Defence, International Trade, and CIDA — to develop a new overarching policy document that was called the “international policy statement” or IPS. Unfortunately, the process quickly bogged down in internal bureaucratic rivalries. The Department of Foreign Affairs was not able to seize the lead and integrate the work to the degree I would have wished. The drafts that came into the PCO and PMO were so poor that Peter Nicholson has since told me he hesitated to show them to me, and when he did, I was openly frustrated with their quality. Eventually, in desperation, we turned to Jennifer Welsh, a brilliant young Canadian academic teaching at Oxford at the time, to apply a single pen to the IPS, and with her assistance it was much improved. In the end, the IPS was frequently delayed, variable in quality, and only a partial success. However, the process of reflection it encouraged did benefit the government as we shaped policy on the individual challenges Canada confronted. It captured many of the elements I have already outlined here, including the emphasis on a new kind of multilateralism, the Responsibility to Protect, and a revivified, more robustly capable military. It also argued for a more geographically focused approach to international development assistance. And it outlined my desire to concentrate much more trade promotion and development on the emerging giants of the developing world.

  In the run-up to the G8 summit at Gleneagles, the anti-poverty campaigner and pop-star Bob Geldof, along with my friend Bono, helped organize a very substantial international campaign to pressure the G8 leaders to allocate 0.7 per cent of GDP to international development assistance by 2015. The campaign involved a string of concerts around the world, including one near Toronto, under the name “Live 8” — an echo of the highly successful Live Aid concerts for Ethiopian relief that Geldof had helped organize in 1985. The Live 8 concerts were just the centrepiece in the campaign, which also involved demonstrations, including one in Edinburgh (as close as they could get to the summit site), which attracted many tens of thousands of people.

  I applauded the aims of the concert organizers and demonstrators. As I have said before, I took the lead on the issue of debt relief for impoverished nations during my tenure as finance minister and in 2002, I strongly supported Jean Chrétien’s commitment to increase Canada’s foreign aid by 8 per cent each year and to double aid to Africa. While the goal of having G8 nations commit to increasing aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2015 was a noble one, I knew that was very unlikely to happen. For Canada reaching the goal of 0.7 per cent by 2020 would have been possible, but it was barely obtainable even on the most optimistic of assumptions by 2015. I preferred setting realistic two-year targets increasing our aid on a track toward 0.7 per cent, building on success as we went. I saw other countries “taking the pledge” — Germany, Italy, and France, for example — that have failed to follow through. This kind of thing is really counterproductive because it is nothing more than a cover for inaction, and as such hurts those who need help most. Poor countries take these commitments seriously. They depend on them and incorporate them into their planning. My recent work at the African Development Bank, which I will discuss later, confirms this absolutely.

  From the point of view of the Live 8 campaign organizers, my position was upsetting, and I understand why. Their tactical goal at the G8 was to isolate the United States, which among the major players was the only country that did not have much of a commitment to increasing development assistance. Jeffrey Sachs, the American economist who was one of the leaders of the movement, told Ralph Goodale that the symbolic pressure on the United States was more important that the substance of the 0.7 per cent pledge. Well, it wasn’t for me. Bono, Sachs, and others had regarded me as a sympathizer to their cause, which indeed I was. But if I was going to commit to a target it was because I believed we could keep our commitment, not in order to scold the United States. In the end, what the leaders agreed at the Gleneagles summit was to double their aid to Africa. Canada had already committed to a higher target than that: increasing aid to $3.8 billion by 2010.1 And we would have continued to do even more (since I had already said publicly that we would increase our aid every two years).

  During the summit, I had an intense but friendly meeting with Bono to explain my position. We were so engaged in our discussion that Bono was going to be late for another meeting he had scheduled: this one with Tony Blair. Officials from the Bri
tish Foreign Office came to fish him out, but the RCMP wouldn’t let them. Bono got to his meeting with Blair, but only after having left him to cool his heels for a few minutes. Bono had once promised to be a “pain in the butt” for me if I did not agree to 0.7 per cent, which he proved to be. At the time of Gleneagles, he told reporters: “I guess I’m going to kick his butt … Canada has lost its chance to lead, but I think he’ll come through in time.” I certainly don’t fault Bono; he is a champion of a great cause. After the summit ended, Sheila and I sat on the patio of the hotel and I had a beer with him, more than one if I remember correctly. I think that he must have understood later that he had lost an ally at subsequent G8 meetings attended by my successor.

  The Gleneagles summit, which showed every prospect of being dominated by the issue of aid, was knocked sideways on the morning of July 7. According to a pre-established protocol, the visiting leaders gathered in a courtyard of the Gleneagles Hotel that morning. One by one, we walked out along a sidewalk for a formal greeting by Tony Blair in front of the cameras. As I walked toward him, I realized that Tony was not beaming his characteristic smile, which puzzled me. While we shook hands, he told me why. News had just reached him that a series of bombs had been detonated on the London Underground. As we later learned, those bombs, plus another on a London bus, killed more than fifty people and injured seven hundred. When the leaders’ meeting began a few minutes later, Tony was very open with us about how torn he felt. Should he remain in Scotland as host of this very important international meeting or rush to London? Of course, the rest of us had no hesitation is saying that he should go immediately and leave the chair in the capable hands of Jack Straw, his foreign minister, which he did.

  In the hours that followed, George Bush was regularly updated on the London situation through his national security and intelligence staff. I soon discovered that I was receiving more or less the same information in equally timely fashion from Jonathan Fried, who was getting his from the BBC and CNN.

  Sheila and I had planned a few days’ private vacation after the summit, travelling around the Scottish Islands. We ditched those plans because of concerns the London attacks might be the start of a wave of similar outrages in other G8 countries, including Canada. Besides, I did not want to have our presence be the cause of diverting even a few British security officers who could be better used elsewhere at the time. It was another sobering reminder of how much our world had changed since September 11.

  Besides the shock of 7/7, as the British came to call their own echo of 9/11, and the political theatre surrounding the pledge on development assistance, the Gleneagles summit drove home for me another of my concerns: the exclusion of the major emerging economies from our exclusive club. On the first day of the summit, we had a working lunch with leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa; on the second day, we did the same thing with a group of African leaders. (We had met with a larger group of African leaders the year before at the Sea Island summit in Georgia, hosted by President Bush.) It was progress of a sort, I suppose. But the image of Hu Jintao, the president of China, and Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India — leaders of the two most populous countries on earth, quite possibly destined to be the largest economies on earth within our lifetimes — waiting outside while we held our G8 meetings, coming in for lunch, and then being ushered from the room so that we could resume our discussions among ourselves, is one that stayed with me. How long will the emerging titans of the developing world be prepared to kowtow to the G8? The answer is: not as long as some people appear to think. Either the developed world will reform its institutions, including the G8, to embrace these new economic giants, or they will go ahead and establish their own institutions, and perhaps one day we will be the ones waiting in the corridor for lunch to begin. The danger for Canada, of course, is that we might not even make the lunch list.

  For my part, I was doing everything I could to open doors to new powers such as China and India by promoting the development of multilateral institutions such as the G20 finance ministers and the creation of its counterpart at the leaders level — the L20. At the same time I also sought to augment our trading thrust, turning it east to face Asia and Latin America as well as south toward the United States. As a trading nation, Canada’s essential dilemma is that we have a relatively small domestic consumer base: just 33 million people. We are lucky, of course, to have a huge reservoir of consumers nearby in the United States. But we also know, only too well, that even with agreements such as NAFTA, we are sometimes at the mercy of powerful domestic interests in the United States, which can override even the letter of our trade agreements.

  I have always believed that the key to economic success in the modern world is the ability to develop a large middle class, or at least access to a large middle-class market, as Canada does with the United States. The economic significance of China and India does not derive from their huge populations. Their populations were huge in the 1960s too, but their economic weight internationally was relatively puny. What has happened in the last two decades is that these countries, and many others in the developing world like them, have reached a stage in their economic development where they have produced significant middle classes. These people are consumers, and they act as an incubator for emerging industries, which can develop a critical mass in their domestic consumer marketplaces before launching onto the international stage. To me, it was self-evident that Canada, with a small population, needed to burrow into these emerging markets without delay. That is why I put a great importance on my trip to India and China and of course Japan, which came right after my visit to the tsunami-affected countries.

  India, which I visited first, is a fascinating human experiment. Despite its enormous developmental challenges, it has managed to remain the world’s largest democracy since independence in 1947. It has by no means finally resolved the challenges of a uniquely complex society with deep divisions of wealth. In the last decade or so, however, the liberalization of its economy has assisted in the growth of a large middle class. Dr. Manmohan Singh had been a colleague of mine as Indian finance minister for a time in the 1990s. I knew him well, and now as I was returning to India as prime minister, he had become prime minister too. The Indians have managed to leverage their superior tradition of education to create dynamic research and high-tech centres. For this reason I sought and obtained an agreement in which both our countries would co-operate as we built our research infrastructure. As well we have an important Indian population in Canada. We need to build on it to forge links, city to city, university to university, and business to business.

  From there, I went to Japan, in part because my old friend Senator Jack Austin felt it was necessary to send a signal to the Japanese that they continue to be important economic and political partners. In the rush to court China, he pointed out, many countries neglect Japan, whose growth may be slower than the emerging Asian economies but whose economy is nonetheless huge. I knew Japan’s importance and I didn’t need to be told twice. By this time, I already knew Prime Minister Koizumi; I was very impressed with him as a statesman who was modernizing elements of the Japanese system and we had developed a warm working relationship. I think that Japan lost a great champion when he later passed from the political scene. The focus of our discussions was the automobile industry and Japanese investment in Canada; but we also discussed the issues of overfishing and the L20.

  My most memorable experience during my visit — and among the most memorable I had as prime minister — was a meeting with the emperor and empress. I had first come to Japan as a young businessman, and was familiar with the sight of the imperial palace, which is surrounded with walls and a moat — creating both the symbol and substance of the emperor’s isolation from the society over which he presides, in a ceremonial and even spiritual sense. I had often gazed at the palace and wondered what it might be like inside. So it was a special privilege to be invited to meet Emperor Akihito there. I have said before that I am
not generally impressed by famous people. I have visited many castles, palaces and grand buildings in my career. But this, I have to say, was different. Not because it is lavish, as many such buildings are, but because it is so austere. Inside the palace, there are few decorations. It is the simplicity of the place — the absence of pictures or ornate heraldry — that inspires awe.

  Some Japanese foreign ministry officials came with me to the palace, as they had evidently done with many foreign dignitaries before. Yet they had never been allowed to venture in. I insisted that they be added to our party when we crossed the moat and passed through the doors. As stunning as the effect of entering the palace was on us, it was emotionally overwhelming to some of them, who were reduced to tears by the experience.

  Before we went, we had received very specific instructions about our comportment. Sheila remembers that she was told not to wear certain colours or open-toed shoes, and that her hem could not be above the knee. When we entered the imperial chambers, we walked a designated number of steps into a long hallway, then paused while the emperor and empress entered from the other end. We bowed, and then, once they were seated, we were led to our chairs, Sheila at the elbow of the empress and me on the other side by the emperor. Empress Michiko speaks good English, so that she and Sheila chatted amiably about music and children’s literature without much help from the translator, as she recalls. In my case, there was more of a language barrier so the conversation was cordial but less animated. After a while we rose, the imperial couple walked us back to the door, and we said goodbye with slightly less formality than had accompanied our arrival.