Four Lessons from the Career of Peter Hancock

Four Lessons from the Career of Peter Hancock

On March 15, a small group of family, foreign service retirees, and friends from the Niagara region assembled in Niagara-on-the-Lake to celebrate the life of Peter J. A. Hancock, who died on Dec. 18, 2023, at the age of 85.


Few people outside the Canadian foreign service will know of Peter Hancock, or his formidable reputation within the Canadian government, as a speech-writer, policy planner, foreign affairs analyst, and specialist on the Soviet Union.  Like most foreign service officers, he was happy to work in the shadows for those who delivered his speeches, read his policy papers, and carried out recommendations he had prepared.

Hancock’s career, however, merits careful attention today.  It holds lessons for the government of Canada in conducting foreign policy in possibly the most difficult international environment since 1945.   It’s not too late to get Canada back on the geopolitical map.  This is a necessity if we are to navigate the turbulent years ahead.

Hancock’s first lesson, a simple one, would be to re-build a strong foreign service, with a diversity of expertise based on real-life experience.  Hancock’s class of 1963 was one of the best in the long history of foreign service recruitment.  The central idea is straightforward: hire good people of various backgrounds and strengths on an annual basis, and put them to work in Ottawa and abroad at jobs that allow them to develop specializations that become their vocation.  Blend in secondments to other government departments or to international organizations, and emphasize training in foreign languages (in Hancock’s case, in Serbo-Croat, Russian, and German, which enabled him to plumb the cultural complexities of the countries to which he was eventually posted).  A recent Senate study points the way.  The mystery isn’t how to do it; it’s how GAC went off the rails in the past two decades.

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The second requirement is to reconnect with Canadians.  Foreign policy is about the promotion and protection of Canadian interests and values, as defined by the government of the day.  One can’t aspire to achieve those goals without knowing Canada and what Canadians want and believe.  GAC was once good at “consultations.”  It needs to get back in business, with the government talking once again to Canadians about foreign policy. Most importantly, it has to open the doors of the Pearson building (when current renovations permit) to Canadians who want to discuss global issues.  If the government, both Ministers and officials, can get the domestic architecture of foreign policy development right, good things will happen.

The third issue is tough because it demands what Hancock brought to the table: expertise and a capacity for thinking.  The government needs to be organized to address key foreign policy issues on a timely basis.  The views of the government of Canada shouldn’t be announced belatedly as a reaction to the pronouncements of others.  They need to be shaped in broad contextual terms, in light of our values and interests, and in anticipation of the crises and problems that we believe are likely to come.  Senior leaders need a GAC that can foster debate and exchanges of ideas within and beyond government.  It needs a GAC that knows the external experts and can talk to them at regular intervals.  It needs the capacity to draft policy papers that demonstrate thought and depth of knowledge.  The analytical depth on regional issues like Haiti, Ukraine and Sudan has to be provided by the geographic bureaux within GAC.  Foreign policy is at times a moving target, but foreign ministries can’t afford to move more slowly than the times.

The fourth issue, a Hancock specialty, is a real challenge – communications.  Start with getting GAC to support the government in communicating clearly and effectively with Canadian missions abroad about our interests, values and policies, so that missions can do their jobs well.  Get our missions abroad to engage with each other, and with Ottawa, on trend-lines and future developments.  GAC has to re-open the doors of the Pearson building to the Ottawa diplomatic community, which is frustrated by the department’s inability to communicate clearly in anything but benign talking points.  Get ministers out and speaking, in Canada, the US, and anywhere our interests dictate.

The voice of the Canadian government has been diminished in the past two decades.  Make it heard again in the international community with sensible pronouncements at the right time.  And back up our voice with Canadian contributions.  We can’t adjourn to the washroom when tough questions are asked about money and troops.

As Peter Hancock knew, all of this is easy enough to write; it’s tougher to accomplish.  For years, GAC has been top-heavy, slow, and increasingly shallow in expertise.  What we now need is a smaller, sharper GAC, more responsive to developments abroad, with fewer people devoted to overseeing others, a lighter administrative foot-print, and more people positioned at the sharp end, at key missions abroad, in geographic bureaux with real clout, and working on substantive policy issues and program initiatives.

To attack the problem, go back to Peter Hancock’s paper on “The Crisis of Quality”, written in 1983.  Or for intellectual inspiration, look at the speech he drafted for Pierre Trudeau’s “peace initiative” in Guelph, Ontario, in October, 1983.  Or revive his “bilateralism” paper, which tried to come to grips with some of the resource challenges that had to be handled when departments merged and programs needed to be aligned with new realities.  These are models of what needs to be done today.

Clarity of vision meant explaining where Canada stood on tough issues. That clarity gave us respect at the UN and in the G7 and G20.

 

What Hancock wanted was clarity of departmental vision, based on a realistic assessment of the global situation and Canadian capabilities in addressing problems and issues.  Clarity of vision meant explaining where Canada stood on tough issues.  That clarity gave us respect at the UN and in the G7 and G20.  It provided room to pursue frank discussions in private and explore quiet diplomacy where needed.  It paved the way for meeting expectations when Canadian leadership was required and the deployment of resources abroad when necessary.  Let’s put the lessons of Peter Hancock’s career back to work in the interests of a reinvigorated Canadian foreign policy.

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