ANTIGONISH: Despite the media labeling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s and American President Barack Obama’s personal relationship as a “bromance,” Canada’s former Ambassador to the United States of America says their professional relationship was anything but.
MacNaughton, who presented his credentials to President Obama on March 3, 2016, told the audience in the Schwartz Auditorium on February 27 at StFX University that in Obama’s final 324-days in office – while they had a warm relationship with the their neighbours from the south – they weren’t able to accomplish very much because of the mismatch of their objectives.
“Reality is Obama was on the tail-end of his administration and the Prime Minister was at the beginning of his,” he told the auditorium of about 100 people. “We had a couple of tough trade issues to deal with; one of them being soft-wood lumber, and the president and his U.S. trade representative did not want to make any deals with us that may impact their other projects.”
In the 1980s, MacNaughton transformed the public affairs industry by building an organization that comprised government relations, public opinion research and public relations.
As part of the 23rd-annual Allan J. MacEachen Lecture Series in Politics, MacNaughton who spent three-years as the Canadian Ambassador to the United States of America, delivered a talk entitled “Difficult Choices for Canada in a Chaotic World.”
Speaking on a number of challenges Canada faces, not just in terms of its relationship with the United States but how we face challenges in a world which is extraordinarily chaotic, MacNaughton suggested a lot of the established institutions we’ve depended on since the Second World War have broken down in one way or another.
“I mean obviously, how do we maintain an independent foreign policy and still be the closest ally to the United States,” he said, speaking on one of the challenges. “Because we are not going to agree with them on everything.”
MacNaughton also questioned how Canada deals with the deteriorating relationship that’s going on between the United States and China and how there are relationships with other countries that suits Canadian purposes, not just those of the Americans.
“What I think is happening is a lot of people are saying Donald Trump has caused this disruption internationally,” he said. “And while some of that may be true, the reality is Donald Trump is a product of a whole series of things that are not just going on in the Unites States.”
MacNaughton suggested society spends too much time talking at each other, rather than trying to find common ground.
“I think we’re into a struggle that’s going to last decades,” he said. “I think what is happening more and more at the present moment is the United States is going to be leaning on us and saying ‘You’re either with us, or you’re against us.’”
Because there will be times, MacNaughton indicated, as there have been in the past, when Canada will want to take an independent position – and the question then becomes how to do that.
“I think the answer to that is not easy.”
In MacNaughton’s view, if Canada is going to be able to have an independent foreign policy and take the stances it wants to when it wants to, Canada is going to have to step-up from a defense and security point of view in a way that hasn’t been done in decades.
Highlighting another difficult choice Canada has to make, he describes the issue of climate change and resource development as being a “huge challenge that everyone acknowledges.”
“We have a situation at the present moment,” MacNaughton said. “Where we need to demonstrate not just to the United States but to investors who are beginning to be challenged in terms of whether they’re going to be putting their money in projects that are seen not to be clean.”
He asked what Canada is going to do as a natural resource economy to transition or to become cleaner and help the world hit carbon reduction targets.
Canada has, as a country, MacNaughton suggested, found ways to meet the challenges, whether they are transportation, coal, or communication – and has found a way to deal with the challenges at home before building strong companies that have exported that knowledge and that expertise abroad.
“I don’t know how long we’re going to continue to use fossil-fuels, but the fact of the matter is, when the last barrel of oil is consumed on this planet I’d rather it come from Canada than somewhere else,” he explained. “Climate change I think isn’t a matter of difficult choices, I think it’s a matter of huge opportunity.”
Part of MacNaughton’s concern is the ideation of saying somehow or another the world’s going to go back to what it used to be, to which he says – it isn’t.
“Because it’s going to be a new reality and I think as Canadians we’re going to have some difficult choices,” he said. “We’re going to have to have a conversation ourselves in where we want to go as a country.”
MacNaughton said Canada needs to shift away from talking about what it shouldn’t do and start talking about what it can do.
“We can get together as a country; it doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything,” he said. “But building a consensus and working together to develop a Canadian position and then finding allies with whom we can work to achieve the goals that we have as Canadians.”