Canada's aid cut, geopolitical stances challenge 'pragmatic' pivot to Global South

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said this fall that Canada needs to better reflect the needs of developing countries and have closer ties with states where the majority of the world's population lives.

But analysts say it will be hard for Canada to rise to that challenge as the Liberals cut back on aid and its foreign service, combined with stances on geopolitics that grate people in what is often called the Global South.

"Canada still has not left that rather comfortable framework that we had in the Cold War," said Pablo Heidrich, a Carleton University professor whose research focuses on the Global South.

"Canada is seen as problematic partner, a country that you don't know what it is going to come up with next."

In a major speech last October, Joly said an increasingly connected, volatile world requires Canada to work with more than just democracies.

"The current world order is also being questioned by people and nations, especially from the South, who challenge whether the rules reflect their reality and benefit their people," she said.

Joly added that many developing countries want relations with great powers such as the U.S. and China, instead of being forced to align with one. "The Global South cannot afford to choose one camp over the other," she said.

In response, Joly said, the Liberals are pursuing a "pragmatic diplomacy" that echoes Canada's Cold War approach of keeping close to Washington while finding ways to co-operate with states who don't align with the U.S.

Heidrich says the world has changed in the past three decades, and that Canada is seen in much of the Global South as echoing American double-standards.

For example, Canada has championed supporting Ukraine against Russia's full-scale invasion, particularly when ministers visit South America, Africa and Asia.

That rankles people who point to Canada's relative silence on conflicts elsewhere, Heidrich said, such as a brutal civil war that broke out in April in Sudan. This week, the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention asked countries to speak out about what it calls rising, ethnically motivated violence.

Heidrich says countries notice Canada's loud condemnation of