Harper’s foreign policy institute a ‘weird balloon’ to float: policy analyst

[Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper waves as he walks off the stage after giving his concession speech following Canada’s federal election on Oct. 19, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo]

Former prime minister Stephen Harper will leave politics some time in the next few months, according to media reports.

In his post-parliamentary life, sources say the former Conservative leader will pursue business interests and possibly establish a foreign policy institute – an aspiration that drew healthy skepticism from policy wonks and no end of ribbing on social media.

“The shocking thing about Harper starting a foreign policy think-tank is just how incredibly incoherent his foreign policy was,” Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, wrote on Twitter.

In an essay for OpenCanada.org last fall, Carvin excoriated Harper’s approach.

“Harper’s rather uninspiring foreign policy can largely be said to be based on shoring up support from his right-wing base (hardly out of character for a politician), perceived economic interests (especially in the natural resources sector) and a kind of hollow but stubborn moralistic approach shouted loudly at the UN,” she wrote.

Days after Harper’s election loss, foreign diplomats welcomed the change.

Under his tenure, Canada eschewed its traditional peacekeeper role for a more aggressive role, joining coalitions in combat in Afghanistan and the Ukraine and sending fighter jets to Syria.

Embassies were closed in Iran and international aid funding was cut and redirected toward economic development, often in countries where Canadian business had interests.

Immigration rules were changed to limit the number of refugees and asylum seekers. Free trade was the top item on the Conservative foreign affairs agenda.

A paper by the Centre for International Policy Studies two years ago concluded that Harper’s “values-based foreign policy” had “come up short.”

“Gone is the Canadian penchant for dialogue, negotiation and compromise, which were formerly expressed in decades-long support for multilateralism, the search for fair and equitable solutions to the world’s problems, and such Canadian-inspired institutions as international peacekeeping,” it says.

“Instead, the Harper government sees the world as divided between friends and foes, enthusiastically embracing the former but refusing to ‘go along’ just to ‘get along’ with the latter.”

Canada became a climate change refusenik, abandoning international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions even as other nations pursued agreement.

A leaked Foreign Affairs briefing document warned last fall that Canada’s international clout was on the wane.

“There aren’t many fans of Mr. Harper’s foreign policy out there,” says one foreign policy analyst, who did not want to be named.

Despite a more aggressive, American-influenced approach to issues such as the Islamic State and Russia, Canada-U.S. relations were noticeably strained under Harper.

A foreign policy institute is a “weird balloon” being floated by the former prime minister, the analyst tells Yahoo Canada News.

The Liberal administration has spent much of its first few months undoing what Harper had done on the international stage, he says.

The “Canada’s back” meme of the Liberals was meant to tell Canadians and the global community alike that the Harper approach is no longer the Canadian approach, he says.

“It’s not that he didn’t have an impact while he was prime minister. He did, absolutely and he had very particular views. But nothing’s left.”

The one lasting legacy of Harper’s era is his 2010 maternal and child health initiative. At the time, Harper was criticized because it didn’t include reproductive rights but that initiative “is the one thing that has outlived him.”