Stéphane Dion says Canada needs more diplomats to build ties with Europe – National

Former foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion says Canada needs to significantly fill its embassies in Europe and set deadlines to follow through on the slew of deals Brussels has signed with Ottawa.

Dion’s comments come after Canada’s former military chief said Ottawa should stop cutting diplomats to boost defense spending.

“These agreements and partnerships should not remain on paper. They should be fully implemented,” Dion told the Senate foreign affairs committee on Wednesday.

“In Ottawa, in Brussels and in European capitals, we have work to do to ensure that commitments are translated into concrete action.”

Dion was Canada’s ambassador to France until January and also a special envoy to Europe.

Dion told the committee that Prime Minister Mark Carney was right to appoint a personal envoy to the EU to oversee the various deals Canada has signed on defence, trade and research — a move Brussels has emulated with its own envoy.

But he said there needs to be a designated person from each side who is publicly accountable for every single deal Canada has signed with Brussels, because it’s not clear how many of these ambitious plans are coming to fruition.

He noted that Canadian businesses are still not leveraging the full potential of the CETA trade agreement between Canada and the EU that came into force in 2017.

“My suggestion then is to ensure that for each agreement signed, there are two senior officials – one Canadian, the other European – who are responsible for the implementation of these specific agreements, with specific objectives and deadlines,” he said.

Dion said Canada urgently needs to increase its diplomatic presence on the continent. He argued that counterpart countries have more diplomats handling fewer files and urged Ottawa to focus its foreign service cuts on headquarters in Ottawa, rather than missions abroad.

The Canadian Press reported last month that Global Affairs Canada is disproportionately cutting overseas-based positions, with rotational positions being eliminated at three times the rate of Canadian-based staff.

“Our resources are already underdeveloped for a G7 country and even compared to countries of lesser importance than ours,” Dion testified in French.

In comments to a University of Ottawa panel Tuesday, former chief of defense staff Wayne Eyre called on Ottawa to hire more diplomats.

“We need to engage diplomatically to create those deep regional and country-specific insights and relationships. And I would argue that cutting diplomats is not the way to do that. We need to go in the other direction,” Eyre said.

In Wednesday’s testimony, Dion also took issue with an idea that has come up repeatedly as Canada navigates a fraught new relationship with the United States — that of membership in the European Union.

He called EU membership a “fake good idea”.

Dion noted that some EU countries have yet to fully ratify the 2017 trade deal with Canada, and Ottawa would join a line of 10 nations seeking to join the bloc. To do so, he said, would mean giving sovereignty to Brussels and debating how the provinces are represented there.

“Canadians will not accept this loss of sovereignty,” Dion said, adding that such a move would require amending the Constitution.

“After that, Canada would be half a country, so we would have to give more than we get,” he said. “And you know how much of a problem equalization payments are among Canadians. Imagine if we had to do that for foreigners.”

Geneviève Tuts, the EU ambassador to Canada, added that the EU only accepts members who are physically located on the European continent.

Achim Hurrelmann, co-director of the Center for European Studies at Carleton University, told senators on Wednesday that the idea of ​​joining the EU is a distraction from the work to improve relations.

“I find the media debate about Canada’s EU membership quite irritating – and the way in which some European politicians have been half-joking recently -. I think this debate can actually become politically quite dangerous, especially in the context of debates such as Alberta separatism,” he testified.

“It is important that Canadian policymakers focus on concrete and realistic steps that can be taken to improve Canada-EU relations, and it is also important that Canadian policymakers ask their European counterparts to do the same.”

Dion suggested that instead of joining the EU, Canada should seek to join the European Political Community, a high-level forum for coordinating a response to the war in Ukraine and economic issues.

He also said the federal government should push to make Canada eligible for grants under a new EU research fund that will replace an existing partnership called Horizon next year.

Tuts urged Canada to rework policies it said are undermining the rules-based trade order and the trade deal Ottawa has with Brussels, such as initiatives to give Canadian companies an advantage in government procurement.

“Some recent economic policies in Canada have created uncertainty for some EU companies,” she testified.

“Buy Canadian” and similar provincial policies, as well as tariffs on steel and steel products, undermine our balanced access agreed to in CETA. And these come on top of several other measures, such as the luxury tax on cars, cheese imports or wines and spirits.”

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