A Minister from Manitoba

In the fall of 1996, officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade warned Lloyd Axworthy that negotiations on a treaty banning the use of anti-personnel land mines were deadlocked. For some time already, Canada had been pushing hard to outlaw this category of weapon, which continues to kill or maim long after a conflict ends. To break the stalemate, Axworthy’s colleagues proposed a bold move: form a new partnership outside of the United Nations with supportive governments and non-governmental organizations. The idea was to launch a public campaign, build momentum, and shame the treaty’s opponents into getting on board. It was a risky bet; Axworthy hesitated.

In his candid and heartfelt memoir, Axworthy writes about the dilemma he faced. It would be “cheeky for a middle power like Canada” to bypass the UN process and launch “an arms treaty initiative on a class of weapons held in most of the world’s military arsenals.” For Axworthy, the professional stakes were also high. By then, he had been minister of foreign affairs for less than a year. Taking the dare meant putting his job on the line.

An exhibit on the devastating impact of land mines had opened at the Ottawa Civic Centre, and Axworthy had taken his eleven-year-old son for a visit the week before. As they toured the site, he explained what Canada was trying to do and the roadblocks it faced. His son took it all in but seemed puzzled: “Aren’t you the minister who can do something about it?”

After another round of fruitless negotiations, Axworthy put the new plan in motion. The campaign that followed was initially rocky, but it ended in triumph: in December 1997, representatives from 122 countries gathered in the national capital to sign the Ottawa Convention. The effort was so successful that Axworthy was briefly a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Most would have been content to rest on these laurels — but not Axworthy. With the support of Jean Chrétien, he continued to devote massive resources to promoting the foreign policy concept known as human security, which prioritizes the interests of individuals over those of states. He helped put in place the brain trust that worked out the Responsibility to Protect, a principle the UN adopted in 2005 that enjoins states to shield people against mass atrocities. He lobbied skillfully for Canada to join the Security Council for a two-year term, which it did in 1999, and for the adoption of the Rome Treaty, which established the International Criminal Court. Throughout, he displayed a clarity of purpose rarely seen among elected leaders.

Axworthy was also lucky. Others had his intellectual chops, but he benefited from a unique set of circumstances. For one thing, he stayed in the job for almost five years. In the past half century, only Joe Clark has had a longer tenure. He had the full confidence of the prime minister: “Jean Chrétien, unlike many leaders past and present, gave space to ministers to make decisions in their mandated areas.” In addition, the international context immediately after the Cold War yielded a period of optimism and renewed faith in the UN system. But butchery in the Balkans and genocide in Rwanda were both fresh memories, and they too gave impetus to his efforts.

Born in Saskatchewan in 1939, Axworthy grew up in Winnipeg’s North End, a culturally diverse neighbourhood that he partly credits for shaping his perspective on human rights and social issues. In his early years, he saw little of his father, who was fighting in Europe with four uncles during the Second World War. His mother was a steadfast apostle for education and made it clear to Axworthy and his three brothers that the way forward went through university. After graduating from United College (later the University of Winnipeg), Axworthy secured a scholarship to go to Princeton, from which he earned a doctorate in politics in 1972.

His years south of the border were formative. He writes passionately about his time in graduate school, where he learned “to quickly muster arguments based on fact and analysis” and acquired a “lasting engagement in learning.” The social context of the times also left a deep impression. The political temperature in the United States was rising, and Axworthy wanted in on the action. In the spring of 1965, for instance, he drove to Alabama to join Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery. He also found inspiration in the White House, where John F. Kennedy had deftly handled the Cuban Missile Crisis and shown “courage of conviction, not obeisance to convention.”

After a spell in academia and stints in ministerial offices in Ottawa, Axworthy entered active politics in 1973, when he won a seat in the Manitoba legislature, the first of an unbroken stretch of eight victories at the ballot box, six of which sent him to Parliament. It was not always smooth sailing, though. Fifteen of his twenty-seven years in politics were spent on opposition benches, two-thirds of them in Ottawa, and while Axworthy remains a Liberal at heart, the relationship has been uncomfortable at times.

He rues the shrinking space given to ministers to manage their portfolios and laments the disappearance of meaningful policy discussions, particularly at party conventions, where the debates of old have given way to “an hour and a half of pre-cooked seminars.” He has less patience still for government announcements that devolve into bland public relations —“if not false advertising”— rather than explain or even inspire. He commends the government for ramping up reconciliation efforts but, in a vibrant plea, contends that much more is needed.

It’s easy to see why Axworthy feels unmoored in our hyperpolarized political environment. He is, at heart, a bridge builder. He inherited a strong streak of social activism from his mother, but he recognized early on that progress is not possible without collaboration across political and jurisdictional boundaries. He writes admiringly of Robert F. Kennedy, who built a broad coalition of city intellectuals and farm workers — Black, white, and Latino — before he was assassinated in 1968. He points to the successes of Lester Pearson, a lifelong role model, who achieved more than most prime ministers — a new flag, a national health care plan, a royal commission that paved the way for the Official Languages Act, to name only a few accomplishments — even though he never secured a majority. If Pearson could do all that, why can’t we? The answer says a lot about us.