John Baird took over as Canada's minister of foreign affairs in May. Last week, he spoke with Foreign Policy during his first visit to Washington as minister, discussing why it would be "a mistake" to call the war in Libya a stalemate, the need to reform Canada's refugee policy, and the problems with a U.S.-Canada border getting "thicker and thicker."
Foreign Policy: Can you tell me what issues you're raising on your visit to Washington?
John Baird: The biggest things are working with the Americans in Libya, and obviously we're trying to work our actions in Syria in concert. We're doing about 10 percent of the military sorties over Libya; plus, we have a bunch of other infrastructure there. We're meeting with good success on protecting the civilian population, but at the same time, we realize that there won't be genuine peace and stability in the country until Qaddafi goes. So we've been pretty hard on that. We've implemented all the same sanctions that the Americans and the United Nations have. In Syria, we've been progressively tightening the noose on sanctions against President al-Assad and discussed what we can do going forward with our other allies on it. Obviously the U.S., the U.K., and Canada have been more aggressive than many of the other countries.
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FP: Do you see any signs that the Libya conflict may be nearing a resolution?
JB: I think it would be a mistake to call it a stalemate. We have been successful particularly in protecting the civilian population. Obviously with the criminal indictment by the International Criminal Court, we want to see Qaddafi go. Obviously, the [Transitional National Council] and the rebels are making advances but it's been slow. But at the same time we've degraded his ability to cause mass civilian deaths. And so the Libyan people have to win this on their own, but obviously NATO has been playing an important mission sanctioned by the U.N.
FP: How long a commitment is Canada prepared to make in Libya if this drags on?
JB: You know, the Canadian Parliament sanctioned the mission. The House of Commons sanctioned the mission, and we extended it for a further 90 days in June. And thus far it hasn't been a political issue in Canada. I think it went through by a vote of 294 to 1, with all four of the parties in the house, and just one person didn't vote for it (I expect just so she could be noted as the one that didn't). I'd like to see us have a Libya Contact Group meeting in Tripoli at the end of September working with an interim government rather than planning for an extension [of the NATO mandate], but obviously we're committed to the case.
FP: What do you think is the next step in responding to what's happening in Syria now?
JB: We had a long discussion with a number of people who were in town, including Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have had kind of the strongest response, and we want to work on our allies to get them to strengthen their actions in this regard. Neither Canada nor the United States have major economic relations with Syria. We have one major project -- a Canadian company has a major project there -- but beyond that very little. So we're working hard on our allies and would certainly like to step up our actions against the regime.
FP: Could you foresee a situation where there might be a military response?
JB: Not at this time. We met with three or four opposition activists here in the United States; I understand that they had met Secretary Clinton earlier in the week. They weren't asking for a military operation. They were asking for increased pressure multilaterally. And it was a good meeting. Obviously I'd like to see us step up the measures there.
FP: What issues have you discussed in terms of U.S.-Canada relations?
JB: One is what we call "Beyond the Border," which is an effort to try to break down the thickening of the border. The prime minister and the president announced it in early February. We're hoping to see that continue to move forward and conclude. The border is big for security reasons, but it just gets thicker and thicker.
A friend of mine's daughter is a consultant at one of the major consulting houses and she needed to bring her university degree to show, which she did and it had a nice Princeton logo on it. The border guard then explained to her that the United States was an English-speaking country and she should get it translated because it was in Latin. That was about three- or four-thousand dollars worth of economic activity lost because she had to go back home.
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