Last November, the Liberals released their Indo-Pacific strategy, a five-year $2.3 billion plan that touches on agencies ranging from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "That to me has been our weakest area of our Africa engagement," Oliphant said. This would fill a gap, since Canada's trade and aid policies were clearer than its foreign-policy aims. The idea was to assess Canada's diplomatic presence across the continent, what groups it should participate in and what goals it should present to African leaders. In an interview, Oliphant said that Joly had asked him in a mandate letter sometime after fall 2021 "to develop a strategy for Africa, and particularly for our foreign policy when it comes to Africa." "The goal is to make sure that we answer the call that many of the African countries are making, to have access to more of Canada." I would say it's an Africa framework," Joly said in a phone interview from Nairobi, Kenya. "Regarding the Africa strategy, well, this is a term that was used by my colleague, Rob Oliphant. Yet in an interview with The Canadian Press earlier this month, Joly said the plan is not a full-blown strategy.
Capital Dispatch: Sign up for in-depth political coverage of Parliament Hill.Rob Oliphant, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, said in interviews last summer and fall that he was working on an "emerging Africa strategy" and "a strategy document for our engagement diplomatically." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has downgraded its long-delayed plan for relations with Africa from a strategy to a framework, saying this better reflects the original intent of the policy - despite criticism the Liberals are not taking the region seriously.įor at least a year, the Liberals have promised an Africa strategy that would outline Canada's relationship with dozens of countries and seize on opportunities to engage with a new intercontinental trade bloc.
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