British High Commissioner to Canada Anthony Cary photograph during an interview in Ottawa.Dave Chan for The Globe and Mail.
Say goodbye to Anthony Cary, the diplomat who spoke out loud. The Harper government doesn't have to tell him to be quiet anymore.
Britain's envoy to Canada has packed his bags and returned to London. For four years his inconvenient task was urging Ottawa, in public, to do more to combat global warming.
As Mr. Cary, 59, left his post as Britain's High Commissioner last month, he said he saw a Canada that's starting to shake some of its self-effacing reluctance to press its own interests, but losing some of its international good-guy image in the process. He went home thinking Canada has vast, under-realized potential - but hasn't got its head around the issue of global warming.
The Oxford-educated career diplomat isn't the first person you'd pick to annoy his hosts. He's in some ways a model British ambassador, tall, erudite, well-spoken, and in no rush to offend, though he defied stereotype in unpompous style, riding his bicycle through slush and wearing tights to deliver a soliloquy at a charity fundraiser.
But for Ottawa's discreet diplomatic world, Mr. Cary's tenure was an experiment in public diplomacy, in trying to influence policy by influencing public opinion. Because his government-appointed brief was to influence Canadians to action on greenhouse gases, he irked the Harper government.
"It means speaking in public… and occasionally to be rather awkward and to get up the noses of ministers," Mr. Cary said on his last day in Canada. "Of course, you have to play it carefully, because if you go too far in that direction, you lose influence because you're no longer able to get at the people who are taking the decisions, and if you make yourself too unpopular, that's not a good things for a diplomat either."
He did overstep at times, he said. The Canadian government asked him to be quiet. "Not to my face," he laughed. "I was aware at a couple of stages that I'd upset people… Even to the point of others being asked to convey messages to me."
The High Commission had a four-person staff devoted to climate change. Mr. Cary worked with environmentalists and with business groups to encourage climate-friendly positions. He wrote letters to newspapers suggesting they urge the Canadian government to take more action. He gave speeches and went on television.
"I think there was a time when diplomacy was very discreet. Decisions were taken behind closed doors," Mr. Cary said. "That is no longer the way the world works. One now has to really get big constituencies behind change."
He believes Canada was coming around to putting a price on carbon before former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's ill-fated Green Shift campaign made it a politically untouchable idea.
Mr. Cary argues it's in Canada's interest to put a price on carbon to promote marketable green technologies, and so industry isn't doubly whacked when the world agrees to tougher restrictions. China is investing in green technology, global talks are warming again, and U.S. states are regulating, even if U.S. President Barack Obama can't pass a law to put a price on emissions.
"We all understand why the American political landscape makes it impossible for the President to pursue the policy," Mr. Cary said. "But I think he would, in his heart, like to be pricing carbon into the economy. I feel as if in the Canadian Prime Minister's heart, he'd rather not. So yoking Canada to American policy appears to be quite convenient."
There were other issues in his four years, of course. The Brits lobbied Canada to keep troops in Afghanistan, there are extensive intelligence exchanges, and the regular business of trade promotion and diplomacy - not to mention hosting a stream of charity fundraisers. Mr. Cary leaves believing in Canada's enormous potential as a country that is generally well-governed and has vast space and resources and a growing and educated population.
When he came to Canada from a post in Sweden, he found his adult children knew little about Canada: They didn't differentiate the accent from American, didn't follow hockey and "reasonable" Canada didn't cause a stir.
"It's like a prodigal son. You're not noticed if you're not out there breaking the china," he said. "But I would say that you have started to break the china rather more."
Canada has become more assertive in pushing its more narrow self-interest on the world stage, and less worried about wearing a white hat. It's also less known for international initiatives like the land-mines treaty it sponsored in the 1990s; once a player in global climate talks, Canada's now only seen as "a slight obstacle to progress," he said.
But a little more assertiveness will also do good.
"I think there's an upside. Because I think that Canada is sort of under-realized," he said. "It has huge potential which I think it's been sort of too diffident to press. So I think being rather more confident and assertive is probably a good thing for Canada."