Statesmen, Strategists & Diplomats: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Making of Foreign Policy

Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

Larry Ostola talks to Patrice Dutil about his book, Statesmen, Strategists & Diplomats: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Making of Foreign Policy, published by UBC Press in June 2023. Statesmen, Strategists, and Diplomats explores how prime ministers from Sir John A. Macdonald to Justin Trudeau have shaped foreign policy by manipulating government structures, adopting and rejecting options, and imprinting their personalities on the process. Contributors provide fresh, sometimes surprising perspectives on a wide range of policy decisions – increasing or decreasing department budgets, forming or ending alliances, pursuing trade relationships, and the management of the prime minister’s personal diplomacy – particularly as these choices affected the bureaucracies that deliver foreign policy diplomatically and militarily. No other book has been devoted to a systematic analysis of the central role of Canadian prime ministers in fashioning foreign policy. This innovative focus is destined to trigger a new appreciation for the formidable personal attention and acuity involved in a successful approach to external affairs. This original work will appeal to those interested in the work of Canadian prime ministers and the making of foreign policy; to scholars and students of Canadian foreign policy and its history; and broadly to Canadian historians, political scientists, and scholars of public administration. Patrice Dutil is a professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the author of Prime Ministerial Power in Canada: Its Origins under Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden and Devil’s Advocate: Godfroy Langlois and the Politics of Liberal Progressivism in Laurier’s Quebec. Among his many edited books are The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent: Politics and Policies for a Modern Canada and Macdonald at 200: New Reflections and Legacies (with Roger Hall). He was the founding editor of the Literary Review of Canada (1991–96) and president of the Champlain Society (2010–17). Image Credit: UBC Press If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.