Want My Advice?

As Mélanie Joly pores over her briefing books and prepares for her next trip as Canada’s sixteenth foreign affairs minister, she could do worse than to read the advice that Jocelyn Coulon gave shortly after the October 2019 election to the “future” holder of the portfolio, as yet unnamed: “As minister, you direct several thousand diplomats who are Canada’s eyes and ears in the world.”

In a lengthy open letter, which first appeared in the pages of L’actualité, Coulon observed that successive governments had been neglecting “an unstoppable source of ideas that must be exploited”; instead, they gave priority to “diplomat-technicians” and marginalized the “diplomat-thinkers.” Ottawa was frequently responding to diaspora ­lobbies and ethnic communities, while neglecting the national interest, which requires a cold and dispassionate look at world affairs. “Our ­foreign policy is too often the victim of passions,” he wrote.

“It is false to claim, as you...