Liberal-Era Diplomatic Language Killed Off

It was once considered a hallmark achievement of modern Canadian foreign policy, but few breathe the words "human security" in Stephen Harper's Ottawa. And this is no accident.

Since taking power three years ago, Conservative political staffers have worked to purge the language of the previous Liberal government's much lauded "human security" policies from the DFAIT lexicon.

This has prompted a debate between those who feel a "smaller" Conservative foreign policy has been implemented, and others who argue that human security still plays a role in Canadian foreign policy beneath what is merely a political rebranding exercise.

DFAIT insiders tell Embassy that since the Conservative government took power in 2006, political staffers have directed rank and file Foreign Affairs bureaucrats to stop using policy language created by the former Liberal government.

"There are phrases you are not supposed to use," said one Canadian diplomat, on condition of anonymity. "Anything that smacks of the previous government is totally verboten.

"There is this tendency, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, to discount or ignore or change whatever it is the Liberals did and let's put a new Conservative face on it," he added. "There's a whole range of words and expressions that are being depopulated out of the documents, and are replaced with ones that are more to the [Conservatives'] liking."

Chief among the forbidden phrases, multiple DFAIT insiders have told Embassy, are "human security," "public diplomacy" and "good governance." Preferred key words include "human rights," the "rule of law," and "democracy" or "democratic development."

Human security refers to a package of policies advanced by the Liberal government in the 1990s, most notably by former Chrétien-era foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy. The human security paradigm, as opposed to the traditional state-centric view of foreign policy, focuses on the rights and well-being of individuals around the world. This bundle of policies included the promotion of the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as various initiatives related to child soldiers, land mines, small arms controls and economic and food security.

Indications of the lexicon change first arose several months ago when the Conservative government instructed Canadian diplomats not to use the phrase "Responsibility to Protect". However, as the government started preparing for a run at a seat on the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon issued an internal memo removing the "Responsibility to Protect" ban.

DFAIT sources say political staffers have made their disapproval of Liberal policy language known to senior bureaucrats when they happened upon such phraseology in policy documents. The orders, DFAIT insiders say, trickle down "by osmosis."

"The way you learn about a lot of this stuff is when you do a draft, and you use a phrase you are used to, and then it comes back crossed out and new expressions are put in," said one.

"Once you realize that, at the director or director general level, these are things they don't want to hear you use, that becomes a command performance and that's it... and that filters right down to desk level eventually."

The message to avoid the Liberal language of human security has also moved well beyond the ramparts of Fort Pearson, sources near the United Nations say.

Bill Pace, the New York-based executive director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy, said Canadian diplomats have told him of the restrictions on their use of certain language.

"I talked to [Canadian] ambassadors in Africa and Asia who told me they were under instructions not to use the term 'human security' because the Harper government considered it part of the Liberal government legacy," Mr. Pace said.

"It's probably very accurate that the current government saw this as key elements of the previous government's foreign policy, and distanced themselves from it," he added, iterating a view expressed to Embassy by a number of academics and DFAIT insiders.

A Rebranding Exercise?

Some three years into its rule, the Harper government has largely completed its work of removing overt references to human security from its websites, division names and programs.

The Human Security Policy Division, for example, has been renamed the Human Rights and Democracy Bureau. DFAIT's Human Security Program, meanwhile, was renamed the Glyn Berry Program for Peace and Security in 2007.

Other programs have not fared so well.

Funding has been cut to the Canadian Consortium on Human Security, an "academic-based network promoting policy-relevant research on human security." The Human Security Fellowship program, which sent graduate students to do field work related to human security in places like Central Asia, Haiti and Africa, was also halted.

Little if anything related to human security, furthermore, remains on DFAIT websites. Pages on the "Human Security Program of Foreign Affairs Canada" no longer exist, for example.

Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae described the scrubbing of Liberal language and policies as "Orwellian."

"They're also not allowed to use the phrase R2P because they see that as another Liberal inheritance," he said. "It's a sad reflection of their ideological desperation, and I think increasingly sets Canada back."

Mr. Rae said the Ontario government of Conservative premier Mike Harris, which succeeded Mr. Rae's NDP government and for which many of the Harper government's ministers and staff worked, similarly forbade officials from using language such as "equity" and "social justice."

However, Fen Hampson, the director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, said the changes are unsurprising. He said every government will engage in "relabelling" and that showing differentiation from your predecessor—in policy or language—is a political imperative.

And despite the fact that overt references to human security policies are largely absent, he said, the underlying ideas appear to have held fast within the ranks of the bureaucracy. The Glyn Berry Program, for example, reflect a focus on good governance and the rights and well-being of the individual, ideas deeply interconnected to human security. Meanwhile, Canada's engagement in Afghanistan and Haiti are driven by human security-like ideas like peacebuilding, assisting war-torn countries and democratic development.

"In a lot of ways, that agenda was successfully institutionalized in the bureaucracy," said Mr. Hampson. "The human security unit has been relabelled, but it's still doing many of the same things, so it hasn't been totally thrown overboard."

In fact, Mr. Hampson said that the softening of Canadian support for human security issues began even during the reign of the Liberal governments, though they left the programs and language of human security in place.

"The downplaying of human security and the language of human security really began right after Axworthy left the scene," he said. "I think it's probably fair to say when John Manley was foreign minister, the sort of rebranding and refocusing to a much more, shall we say, hardcore view of Canada's security interests, and the importance he gave to the bilateral relationship with U.S. [took place]."

Mr. Manley inherited the mantle of foreign minister from Mr. Axworthy in October 2000, during a time when relations with the United States seemed strained, partially because of the human security agenda itself. Many of the major human security initiatives, the ICC and the land mine ban being two examples, were not supported by the United States.

"Some people felt that the human security agenda...had become somewhat of an irritant with Washington," Mr. Hampson said. "There was a feeling that [human security]...had been seen south of the border that we were running interference on U.S. policy."

Support for the human security package and R2P weakened further after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and especially following the invasion of Iraq.

Many developing countries, Mr. Hampson said, feared the Responsibility to Protect could facilitate their invasion by powerful Western nations.

"R2P, which they saw as very interventionist, almost became discredited after Iraq," said Mr. Hampson, adding that it is viewed by many as "yet another doctrinal instrument to interfere in the internal affairs of countries."

Professor Brian Job, director of the Centre of International Relations at the University of British Columbia, agreed that human security's fingerprints can still be seen on Canadian foreign policy.

"The paradox that has occurred is that Canada and its diplomats and websites no longer feature the words human security as a programmatic label," Mr. Job said. "But they articulate the agenda of human security in their programs such as in Afghanistan, which is all about the human security of Afghan civilians, and the same goes in Haiti.

"The government doesn't pronounce on human security, but looks to achieve humans security," he added.

Mr. Job said a more substantive shift has occurred on the diplomatic front, where Canadian diplomats adopted a less active and activist demarche.

"Where you've seen the current government draw back from the previous human security agenda has been on its proactive leadership at the institutional level in the international system," he said, citing a lack of enthusiastic support for the International Criminal Court and R2P as an example.

This lack of diplomatic leadership, Mr. Job added, has left Canada with a foreign policy of a much narrower scope.

"The Conservatives as a government have a quite different notion of what a foreign policy agenda should be, and it certainly is not one of proactive leadership at international level," he said. "It's much more reactive, selective, I would say a much smaller foreign policy. Human security was a broad agenda about looking for opportunities to be innovative, and that's not the modality of the current Conservative government."

Mr. Pace from the World Federalist Movement said he found it quite "ironic" that Canada, under the Harper government, turned its back on the human security paradigm just as it was being accepted by more governments and civil society groups around the world.

"Even if Canada abandons it, it's now firmly implanted and there's tremendous support amongst civil society in small and middle power democracies," he said. "Canada was being viewed as much more of a leader in progressive international politics than it is now, and in the last several years it is seen more as looking inward, more dealing with economic issues, and protecting its relationships with the U.S."

And while Lloyd Axworthy may be viewed by the Harper government as a Liberal partisan, Mr. Pace said, he is remembered abroad as a "world community leader and organizer, someone who wanted to take advantage of the end of the Cold War and get not only Canadian but international policies onto a much more peaceful path."

jdavis@embassymag.ca

http://embassymag.ca/page/printpage/diplomatic_language-7-1-2009