Wither DFAIT, year 33

In what must be one of the most systemically true, non-time-sensitive Canadian news stories of all time, the Canadian Press reported on Sunday that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (or, wearing a different hat, Foreign Affairs Canada) is "is in the grips of a kind of existential crisis" and "faces financial, morale crisis; feels muzzled."

Quelle surprise.

This sort of thing has been true since the mid-1970s, when, as a colleague tells me, Canada's foreign diplomats in Kabul attempted to pull one over the Brits by kindly asking them to henceforth handle Canada's affairs in Afghanistan.

The British response to our request did not, as one might expect, reciprocate any usual Canadian courtesy.

The problem then was, as it is now, a matter of funding. Not a culture of bureaucratic indifference, nor inter-departmental enmity, nor any of those adjunct institutional factors that, while they play a major and ongoing role in the tragedy, are actually understudies to the lead.

The real existential crisis is overextension, the 'minimax' expectation that Canada punch above its weight without wearing the right gloves. Our leaders consistently make 'maximum' public foreign policy demands that, supplied with 'minimum' funding, are well beyond DFAIT's financial and operational capabilities.

(The same could be said of CIDA, DND, CSIS.)

The systemic nature of the 'minimax' problem then begs the question: are we — the taxpayers, the government, whomever — actually willing to spend the money it takes to address let alone achieve Canada's foreign policy objectives, be they what they may?

Or have we always simply set the bar too high?

~