The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - My Life in Politics with Lloyd Axworthy - Encore

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Time in the cabinets of Pierre Trudeau, John Turner and Jean Chretien allowed Axworthy to see power close up.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. It's Wonderful Wednesdays, or Encore Wednesdays as we call them. We go back about a month here to October 15th for our conversation with the former Liberal Cabinet Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, about his new book, A Life in Politics. I hope you had a great weekend thanksgiving weekend you know i'm in scotland they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. It's awfully hard to find turkey here, but nevertheless, had a great weekend. The weather was, hey, it's Scotland. There was a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It was fine. It was just perfect. But here it is, Tuesday, and in some ways the beginning of a new week.

And we've got a special guest today in Lloyd Axworthy, former minister under three different Liberal Prime Ministers, Trudeau, Turner, Krejci. He was a member of the Manitoba Legislature in the 1970s. That's where I first met him. I was a young reporter in Winnipeg, covering everything that moved in that province, including things that happened under the golden boy of the Manitoba legislature. Well, Lloyd Axworthy was I used to call them lonely liberals

on the prairies, and that was the case in Manitoba as well. But by 1979, he was on the federal scene, and so was I. I was in Ottawa by then, covering national politics, and I used to tell my colleagues, watch that guy who just arrived from Winnipeg. I said, he's got potential. I think he could be a leader of the Liberal Party one day

and then possibly prime minister. Well, that didn't happen, but cabinet portfolios did happen, and significant ones. His first one was for Pierre Trudeau, and then for John Turner, Minister of Transport. When Kraytchen took power in 1993, the former Prime Minister made Lloyd Axworthy Minister of Labour, then Minister of Employment and Immigration, then the dream job for him, the one he'd always wanted, I think,

Minister of Foreign Affairs, which he was in that office for about five years until 2000 when he slipped away from politics, went back into academia, where he'd come from. He was President, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg. And, you know, had a significant time there in the Winnipeg office. I've kept in touch with Lloyd over the years. We've shared duty on advisory council at McMaster University.

So we've done a few things together, but always kind of keeping in touch. Well, the last couple of years he spent writing his book, My Life in Politics. It comes out this week. And hey, if you like political anecdotes, this book is full of them. So we're going to have a chat. Let's get to our interview with Lloyd Axworthy.

Hope you find it interesting. I certainly found it interesting to have the discussion with the former minister and all the things he has to say about his time in office. We don't obviously deal with all of them in this interview. In fact, just a couple. But I hope you'll find it interesting. Here we go. My discussion with Lloyd Axworthy.

So one of the perils of interviewing an author about their new book is, you know, you don't want to give the whole book away. And in your book, there's lots to give away because there are so many good stories and anecdotes about your political life. And I found many parts of it fascinating. And you know and I know that we go back somewhat to winnipeg days back in the in the 70s so you know we've both seen seen a lot during that time here's the way i want to start though i want to isolate one part of your book um that i was you know i knew i was going to

find interesting before i got to it but when i got to it, it was even more interesting than I thought. And this is the way I'd like to start. There's a pineapple-shaped object in your study. Right. Tell me about that and why it is so important to you. Well, it was given to me, I know this sounds strange, as a gift from a Norwegian demining group that was in Sarajevo, same time I was visiting. This would be back around in the mid-90s. It was actually my first visit after becoming foreign minister.

What fascinated me is that they were opening up layer upon layer. Saryu had changed hands between sort of the Bosniaks and the Serb militia. And there was a river dividing it, there was firing going on. But the landmines had to kind of build up like a pyramid. And they were stripping them down, sort of strip by strip. And I was fascinated by this and sort of came over and poked over and we had a good chat about from these guys who are out there every day, putting their life at risk. I mean, it's no fun poking into the soil and thinking you're going to find a mine. Anyway, I expressed an interest, and it was just when we were starting as a government to get engaged on the landmine issue, and they said, well, look at, how would you like to have one of these? And they gave me this sort of, as you see, a big kind of pineapple thing, which is designed to pop up and once it's triggered, it gets you in the

gut. So you can imagine what damage it does to people. And for me, it had two symbols to it. One was, just reminded me of just how awful, hideous a weapon this was. And it was the kind of weapon that was hidden. People were discovering them 20 years after the war or conflict was over. So it had a huge sort of victimization of innocent people along the way. But the other part of it was it also symbolized the fact that in the next couple of years,

Canada played a significant role in organizing a treaty to ban the use of landmines. And so, you know, it was probably one of the highlights of my time in government and politics. But it just reminded me that there's two sides to every story. And that piece of pineapple, now defamed, fortunately, sits in my office to keep me alert. Well, as it turned out, I mean, Canada, as you said, played a dominant role. You played a dominant role. A number of civil servants, public servants played a dominant role

in that process. But it wasn't easy. And you ran up against, you know, major stumbling blocks in terms of other countries who were not interested in pursuing a landmine treaty. Talk to me about that and how you tried to deal with that. Well, so much of what was, we were just simply kind of emerging out of the old coal war. We were big simply kind of emerging out of the old Cold War. We're big power dominant. And the United Nations had set up in Geneva a disarmament conference, which met on these things.

I describe it in my book as an abattoir where good causes go to die, because it was simply a way of sort of redirecting, of distracting any serious effort. And there had been an emerging movement on landmines, but it was being totally captained by big powers, countries who had a vested interest in sort of their military position. And it really behooved us somehow to break that stalemate. It was a crazy thing, Peter. It was just people going months on end talking about the same thing with no decisions.

And it was, again, a group of Canadian sort of foreign service officers, ambassadors, who came together with the campaign to ban landmines and said, look, why don't you come to Ottawa to have a little, let's see if we can break this roadblock. And they came to Ottawa, and this was in the fall of 96, a year before the treaty was actually signed. And I remember, you know, the same kind of dance occurred. It was a minuet of, we can't do this and we can't do that. And it was on a Friday night, we gathered in my office in the Pearson building,

a group of the people, I can, they're named in the book, but they were, I called them the spear carriers for landmines. They got together and they said, look, this thing's, you've got to say something tomorrow morning as a benediction to the meeting. you've got nothing to say. I mean, it's the same old, same old. And until one of them, they started looking at each other, kind of like, do we tell them or not? And all of a sudden they came out and said, look, Minister, here's an option you can think about. I said, okay, what is it? And they said, well, look, you could, if you felt up to it,

to announce an invitation to all the countries to come back to sign a treaty in a year's time. And I said, isn't that being a little cheeky? I mean, the big guys won't like it. And they said, well, yeah. But anyway, we did some sounding outs, Prime Minister's office, we talked to the Secretary General, talked to the NGO groups. And Peter, it was one of those moments,

I think that in the book I try to say, in your politics there's sometimes some, you can't consult more, you can't think more, you can't reflect more. You can't think more. You can't reflect more. You have to decide. And it was then that we decided to go for the call. And the next morning, at the end of the conference, and I have to say this. I'm going to say this because it's an interesting part of the book.

That night when I went to bed on the Thursday night, Denise and I and our son Stephen had gone to visit an exhibit of landmines that were taking place in the old Lansdowne Park sort of area. And I was explaining to Steve what these weapons did to people. And he kind of looked at me and said, well, can you do something about it? And I said, well, he said, aren't you the minister? And I said, yeah. He said, well, then do something. I mean, nothing like an 11-year-old will pick out and give you your walking instructions.

So I had that sitting inside my head when I went to bed. And so the next morning, the thing occurred. And I get up and did the normal salutation. And at the end, I said, in light of what's happened, I'm going to invite all of you to come back a year from now to sign a treaty. And there was this gasp, I guess. The oxygen was drawn out of the room. I have to say, it was a good minute or two before people knew what to do, I mean, who is this guy getting up and kind of saying, you know,

telling the Americans and the Russians and the Chinese and all this stuff, basically, go stick it. But the announcement went through, and I have to say the Canadian media was also totally skeptical. I mean, I think as I went back and read some of the clippings, I was like, well, actually he's done it again, sort of thing.

You know, he's out there on the limb. But what I had confidence in is the team that came together, officials and sort of people in my own office, my political aides, people I talked to outside, and they said, you know, you might just pull it off because there is some momentum.

And we launched it and we got into it, and a year later, we had 120 countries showing up in Ottawa to sign a treaty. No, you know, it was pretty impressive that that happened. into it, and years later we had 120 countries showing up in Ottawa to sign a treaty. No, you know, it was pretty impressive that that happened, and then here we are 27 years later. The treaty still exists. They're still clearing landmines. Yeah, they are. Which gives us an idea of just how many were out there.

What about the big countries? What about the Americans? What about the Russians? What about those who have used land? Well, interesting enough, on the Americans, they were really quite split on this. The new Clinton administration, which had just come into office, I had established a good connection with Madeleine Albright,

and they were very much being influenced by Pat Lee, who was a senator from Vermont, and a guy named Bobby Mueller, who had hit up the Vets for Vietnam, who had been paralyzed in the war in Indochina. But the Vets for Vietnam were a very powerful sort of NGO in Washington. And they at one point convinced Bill Clinton, his first speech at the UN General Assembly to call for a ban. Now, once that happened, the Pentagon kind of went into high gear and started finding all kinds of reasons you couldn't do it. But there was already that kind of public commitment. And to their credit, the Americans sort of announced they were not going to export landmines to anybody anymore. But anyway, so we filled the vacuum. And I think Madeline,

once she saw that there was real traction, other countries were coming aboard, decided that they would like to get involved in the negotiation. And that took us right up to the final negotiating time in Oslo. And it was a kind of Hobson's choice, you know, sitting on the cliff because the prime minister was very active in dealing with President Clinton. I was talking with Madeleine and to Sandy Berger, the national security guy. And they thought that Clinton really had a good chance of committing. And I thought, boy, if we can get the Americans to sign this treaty, then that's a triple bonus.

But we needed more time. And so I asked our delegation to ask for another 24 hours. And once that happened, there was immediate sort of counter-reaction. People saying, oh, God actually caved into the Americans. And that started circulating around Oslo. And unfortunately, that's the same time the Nobel Prize Committee was meeting. So I was quickly erased from the list. You had a shot at that. You were in the sort of nomination process for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, but I think what happened was that as soon as that started circulating

around Oslo, I was taken off the – I didn't make the cut, but let's put it that way. Well, even to be mentioned is quite the honor because of all the Nobel Prizes. That's the one, right? Peter, if I can make one thing, is that what a lot of people – there's two things that people, I don't think, fully appreciate. One is the incredibly important role that John Cretchen played. Now, I'm not doing that because he was my old boss, but you know the government at the

time. You were following it. The big mantra was deficit cutting and separatism. Well, Cretchen, sorry, he said, I will give you $100 million to make this thing work. Now, that gave us the walking money we needed. That gave us the opportunity to do all kinds of things. And the other thing is he took on a very important role at various summit meetings and G7, G20 meetings.

He would raise the issue, which communicated to the international community that Canada was serious about this. So we got real credibility. You know, one of the reasons that I isolated this issue out of your book, and as I said earlier, there's many different places we could go with the stories you tell in this book. But one of the reasons I isolated this is because it's kind of timely. The way I look at landmines, you know, landmines exist on the battlefield, but those battlefields aren't

always just filled with soldiers. They're also filled with civilians. And that was the awful nature of what was happening with landmines. There were especially children, you know, in some of the countries that you mentioned and others who had been bad, you know, either killed or badly injured as a result of landmines. And what, what that did in fact, was kind of narrow the safe civilian space that exists in the world. And today, you know, we've looked just in the last couple of weeks, you know, they're not landmines, but when you start using pagers and walkie-talkies, you're limiting that civilian space again, because they're not on a battlefield.

They're in a home. They're in restaurants. They're in offices. You know, they're all over the place. And in some ways, it's kind of similar that the technology has taken us to that area. It's a technology that's also, you know, we're becoming sort of victims of this new world order that the Russians and the Chinese and Iranians and others want to sort of undermine. They're basically saying that that very long period post-World War II, right up through the 90s and even into the beginning of this millennium, the people trying

to find ways of protecting civilians, children, women, innocent people. And there was a whole, you know, just to think, to put it in this, the whole issue of nuclear destruction. We had something like 10 or 12 different treaties and arrangements. We have one left. It's unraveling. I mean, and talk about landmines, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has meant that a substantial part of that northeast corner of Ukraine has been mined, which means that for the next 30 years until they finish the demining, we won't be able to grow a thing. People can't walk on the ground. But the whole thing is coming apart, the whole idea that we're there to protect. And that was something that I thought was a special cachet or a special mission for Canada. As you know, we developed the foreign policy based on human security,

which is the protection of people, not just the protection of nations and governments. And that became our basic sort of touchstone of our foreign policy from the mid-'90s right until 2000. When, you know, having said all that, here we are 27 years after that treaty was signed. Do we live in a safer world as a result of that? No, no. I think there is probably one of those, there's a wonderful saying by the Italian philosophers that the world is changing, we don't know to what.

But what we know is what was there before isn't working. And we're in that kind of gray zone right now that a lot of our institutions and our norms, our standards, our treaties are being challenged, being undermined, being eroded, to be replaced by much more of authoritarian military-type governance. But it's not there yet. And so I think what's happening is that but you're saying, look, we focus right now on what's happening in the Middle East,

Ukraine. But I mean, it breaks my heart. You have to read the reports coming out of Sudan. I mean, women are being raped as a weapon of war. It's a form of genocide. The Arab Muslim groups, militias, are basically eliminating the black population in Sudan. And we're standing by it. I mean, the world is sort of, we get concerned about getting our own sort of nationals out of these countries. But in terms of actually

any action, so you can go Sudan, you can go Myanmar, you can go Mali, you can, I mean, count them on your fingers and your toes. And this whole idea that there was a responsibility. Remember, one of the things, the last thing I did as a foreign minister was to set up a commission that came out with a responsibility to protect idea. You know, that had this basic thesis that if a government won't protect its people, can't protect its people, or in fact is the predator, then the international community has a responsibility to protect. And that was passed by the UN in 2005.

And I mean, I'm not being partisan, but Mr. Harper's government basically put that on the shelf. They wouldn't even talk about it. And the present government doesn't do that either. I mean, they haven't resuscitated that concept as a part of our foreign policy agenda. You know, you mentioned Sudan. Your friend and my friend Sam Nutt has been there a number of times in the last year or so. We've had her on the program from Sudan, and the stories she tells are just heartbreaking about what's going on there. I want to take a quick break, and then I want to come back and talk a little bit about politics in Canada right now,

after your lifetime in politics and seeing a lot of things and how things are unfolding right now. But I'll do that right after this. Okay, good. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge. Special guest today is Lloyd Axworthy, the former Liberal Cabinet Minister. His new book, My Life in Politics.

Fascinating read. Goes on sale within the next couple of days. so you'll have your opportunity to pick that up. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, whichever level you're listening to us on, we're glad to have you with us. So, Lloyd, your life in politics has been very much on sort of the progressive side of the Liberal Party, a lefty within the Liberals, which is kind of a dirty word these days. Yeah. What happened?

Well, again, if you don't mind my doing a little play, in the book I talk about beginning really in the 80s. And it was really the inflection point was the free trade debate in 1988. The whole neoliberalism idea that was being fostered by these sort of economists and picked up by Thatcher and Reagan, which is that the government doesn't work and that we have to open up the market, let the market make all the decisions. That began to infiltrate, I think, certain liberal circles. And there was a real increasing sort of dynamic.

And actually, in a way, that's healthy. Because I think the only reason I became liberal way back when I was in my teens is that a big tent party like that would allow somebody with a kind of liberal international, liberal view to have somebody who's from what you call a business liberal. And we would interact, and we would win some and lose some, but we recognized that we were in it together. Beginning with this neoliberal stuff, it became take no prisoners. And as a result, you know, the party began to shift. We had the Elmer Conference, which basically was a sort of a platform

for this kind of neoliberal idea, free trade, get rid of unions, minimize government. And we paid a big price for that. I mean, we got rid of the weed boards. We got rid of the Kanawha Labs. We got rid of the Economic Council. Anything that sort of smacked of government was put on the chopping block. And I think that's what happened.

And that's what really, John Crutcher, when he became prime minister, had to balance those two, those different kinds of points of view. Clearly, the deficit cutting was the major focus. But I was the human resource minister for two years. People forget that. Peter, I tried to forget it. It was not my finest hour. I tried to do a social policy review. And I just, as I said, when the prime minister said

that he wanted me to be the human resource minister, I thought it was like being invited to be the turkey at Thanksgiving, and you're going to be carved up. And those ideas are still in retention. I mean, they're still there. And we've gone through some governments that just took this as gospel. I think the present government still has overtones. In a housing crisis, they're still not prepared to say the present government still has overtones in a housing crisis they're still not prepared to say

the federal government has to get into building housing as it did look I'm a product of the wartime peacetime housing my father was a veteran and 60,000 new homes were built in a matter of 3 or 4 years and they're still out there

you can go into any city and they're there. But right now we have to manipulate interest rates and manipulate subsidies, but we're not prepared to get in on the ground and make it happen. So we've kind of lost that sense of how government is an important, necessary tool, instrument for creating the public good. And that, I think, has been increasingly the problem with liberalism. It's kind of lost that particular perspective. Are you embarrassed by the situation the liberals face right now?

I mean, you know, they've had tough times before, but when you look at the polls and the nature of the ways people talk about this government and about this prime minister. Right. I'm more shocked and I guess I'm more, well, I go back to, again, my own history. I guess one of the reasons for doing a book is you get a chance to reflect a little bit. And I was the survivor, one of the 40 survivors in the Louisville caucus in 1984, when we just got routed. But here is something that is not talked about,

is that when Pierre Trudeau became the prime minister again in 1980, I think there was a basic sense that we were living on borrowed time. We had barely, the conservatives, Joe Clark had won the election seven or eight months earlier. They made a calculated parliamentary mistake and we came back. But we knew that the liberals had been around a long time, that the label was getting a little tattered. But what he did is something that, to me,

is the proudest moment of my political life. He brought in the Canadian Charter for Rights and Freedoms, which has fundamentally changed this country. It's given a new shape and identity to who we are, what we do, how we treat people. And that was done on the basis of knowing that this was not necessarily going to be a big vote gainer. There wasn't calculations of, well, does this keep us in power? It was simply that we said, boys, this is something we can do to make this country a better place.

And I think that's what's missing right now. I think the present government wants to go back to the people with the same leadership. And I think they've done some good things, child benefits and things. But there's nothing, there's no new candle in the window. Nor is there, and the by-play in Parliament, which is getting really very rough and crude, for a lot of people, young people in particular,

saying, what the hell's going on here? So if somebody asked my view, I'd say, well, look, when those numbers are against you, and I've been through that, when people have decided, they're kind of decided. But why don't you use your time to do something really substantially of a significant way to deal with some of our democratic issues, some of our economic issues, and come up with some really things to really put out there to Canadians of, let's make some significant changes, and we'll go down the ship with the flag flying. But you'd think that that would be kind of obvious that they need to do that,

and yet they don't. No, they don't. That's what I don't get. It's just, it is so obvious. I mean, I was engaged in a conversation a couple of days ago talking to somebody about the book, and as you've read it, you say that one of my proposals in a conversation a couple of days ago talking to somebody about the book. And as you've read it,

he said that one of my proposals that we start doing, go back to the liberal idea of election reform, which was substantially, you know, sort of bolster our democratic capacity because a lot of people right now don't feel they're part of the system.

And you and I participated in the thing at McMaster, which is a kind of a deliberative democracy. How many people got, hundreds of people got involved and where do we, so those things are out there happening and Canadians want to be involved, but there's a kind of a immunity about it. I just don't get why that signal is not getting through. So part of the agenda, I think, has been – we're into this kind of spitball exchange in Parliament and the kind of stuff that you played in your schoolyard about your mother wears iron pants and stuff.

But it's going nowhere. And I just think for the sake of liberalism, which I'm still a strong believer in in this country, the government has to show that it's got that kind of intent. It wants to do something that makes a difference. Just one last thing before we close it out. One of the things that I know you've you're a strong believer

in because you exhibited it during your time in Parliament and so did many others from other parties that there was a kind of a non-partisan way of getting along and addressing issues which I don't know whether it still exists today.

Maybe it does on some level, but you don't see it and you don't feel it. And as Canadians who watch this kind of circus going on in Ottawa, they must wonder if it ever happened. But just reflect on that for a minute because I know you were a part of that process where members from different parties got together and worked at things together. Peter, about three or four weeks ago, Joe Clark and I were asked to appear to think of the Victoria Forum. And the question was, how do you develop political trust?

And it led us into, I mean, Joe and I, when we were on different sides of the house, I told the story about how when I became the immigration minister, Ron Atkey, who was in the Clark government, took me out for lunch and said, I remember these words I write in the book, being an immigration minister, you've got to stay trusted, keep the doors open, but also manage it so the Canadians feel that you're in charge, that you're managing. And Joe said, that's right. He said, what was interesting is that Ron Ackie started this major sponsorship program to bring in 60,000.

I picked it up in 1980, and we delivered it together. I mean, it was a classic across-the-House-of-Commons engagement. And then he told the story about how when I was in opposition, he was foreign minister, he and Brian Marruna were very interested in Canada becoming much more active in the Americas, in Central America. They revived our interest in the OAS. And he wanted, at the time, the big Contra Wars were on in Central America. So he asked myself and Bill Blakey from the New Democrats and John Bossie, the Conservative speaker, to spend a couple of weeks in Central America doing a kind of reconnoitering to see what role could Canada play. And we bounced around in

an old turboprop plane. We came back and gave him a report. He took those recommendations and administered them. And he said, why? Because they were good recommendations. And there was a classic example. There was no jostling for position. We felt as members of Parliament, we were doing something at the behest of a minister who was prepared to try to do something on a cross-party basis. Those are two examples. And there are many others I could give.

I mean, I used to have some friends on the other side. is that when I was getting bashed around the cabinet on an issue or a motion or a measure, I would talk to some of my opposition friends and say, look, can you ask me some really nasty questions in the House? And I sometimes wrote them out. And they would ask the questions, and I went back to them and say, see, that guy is just kicking the hell out of me. You've got to help me out here. So anyway, that's the kind of cooperation we had. that guy is just kicking the hell out of me. You've got to help me out here.

That's the kind of cooperation we have. Fascinating conversation. And it's a fascinating book, Lloyd. And I wish you much luck with it. And it's a good read. Take care. Well, Peter, thanks for giving me the chance to talk about that. And I still think back on that couple of years we spent at the McMaster Project.

That was a really fascinating time. I learned a back on that couple of years we spent at the McMaster Project. That was a really fascinating time. I learned a lot from that. And so we'll do it again. We will. All right. I'll leave it at that for today. Lloyd Axworthy, the former Liberal cabinet minister, now reflecting on his time, his many years in public office,

both first in Manitoba and then nationally in the cabinet in Ottawa. His book, My Life in Politics, is on sale, going on sale this week. So you can find it in bookstores in different parts of the country or online if that's the way you get your books. Sutherland House is the publisher. And as I said, we wish Lloyd luck with his book sales. Interesting read. Lots of little anecdotes like that last one

about how he used to get the opposition MPs to ask some difficult questions so he could make a better case in cabinet about whatever that issue was. And that was this week's Encore Edition with Lloyd Axworthy from October 15th of this year. His new book, A Life in Politics. Hope you enjoyed it. Music