Brian Mulroney and Stephen Lewis on principled leadership in foreign affairs
Canada needs more principled leadership in foreign affairs, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former UN Ambassador Stephen Lewis told a symposium on Canada鈥檚 role in the struggle against apartheid held by Massey College and the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History on April 10.
For the occasion, Mulroney and Lewis delivered a spell-binding exposition on how they defied the foreign affairs bureaucracy, Margaret Thatcher and the U.S. and British governments to give Canada a leadership role in the fight against South African apartheid.
Mulroney said that when he came into office in 1984, he was not happy with Canada鈥檚 dealings with South Africa, which consisted largely of ignoring its racist policies.
He recalled a conversation with South Africa鈥檚 Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu where he asked the outspoken apartheid opponent if a middle power like Canada could have influence on the issue. The archbishop replied that the Canadian government could translate morality into political action, and Mulroney said he immediately afterward called his foreign affairs minister Joe Clark and the clerk of the Privy Council and told them that the campaign against apartheid would be the Canadian government鈥檚 highest foreign policy priority.
For Lewis, a former Ontario NDP leader appointed by Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney to be ambassador to the United Nations during the 1980s death throes of apartheid, the campaign was without dispute Mr. Mulroney鈥檚 finest hour.
鈥淣othing will sully that legacy,鈥 he said.
Lewis recalled Mulroney鈥檚 address to the UN General Assembly in 1985, when the Prime Minister decided to restore a sentence that External Affairs had wanted removed from his speech: 鈥渋f there is no progress in the dismantling of apartheid, our relations with South Africa may have to be severed completely鈥.
鈥淵ou have to have been in the General Assembly to appreciate what happened when those words were uttered鈥, commented Lewis. 鈥淚 was at the UN for four glorious years. I had never seen anything like it before, and I never saw anything like it afterwards. It was an extraordinary moment. It was, for all the African delegations, a moment of hope.鈥
Mulroney, for his part, praised Lewis for 鈥渁rticulating a Canadian vision of the world [at the UN] that had never been heard before.鈥
Both speakers also commented on other matters in Canadian foreign affairs.
鈥淚f I had been Prime Minister in 1994, there鈥檚 no chance that Canada would have stood idly by and watched what happened in Rwanda鈥, said Mulroney. 鈥淲e had made a difference in Ethiopia, we could have made one in Rwanda鈥.
Lewis added: 鈥淲e鈥檝e removed ourselves from debates on significant international issues, whether it鈥檚 genocide in the Central African Republic or climate change. We don鈥檛 even have an influential voice in defining the next set of Millennium Development Goals. It鈥檚 sad.鈥
Both speakers received standing ovations from an audience of students, academics, former cabinet ministers and a governor-general, the Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson. () The transpartisan composition of the panel 鈥 introduced by Hon. Bill Graham and moderated by Professor John English 鈥 was noted several times as Canada鈥檚 ideal approach to international policies.
Economist Brett House, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, told the panel during question period: 鈥淭oday, you've made it respectable to be nostalgic for the 鈥80s.鈥