Can hope still be an active force in a divided and fractious world? That was the question posed by Lloyd Axworthy at the Our Whole Society conference in Winnipeg from June 15 to 17.
Axworthy, Canada’s foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, said the idea of hope is a “moral summons, an imperative” today that “captures the gravity of the moment.”
Speaking at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on the conference’s second day, Axworthy acknowledged it can be hard to find hope in a world filled with conflicts and challenges.
One way to have hope, he said, is to have some foundational beliefs and core values. Axworthy pointed to his Christian faith — developed and nurtured as a member of the United Church of Canada — as core to his values.
Axworthy says core values of serving others and seeking the best for them helped guide him in his career as a politician and on the international stage.
There was Canada’s 1999 decision to militarily intervene in Kosovo to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians. There was the historic 1997 Ottawa Treaty that led to the banning of anti-personnel landmines. And there was the 2000 United Nations Responsibility to Protect doctrine that stated that nations have a responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
In each case, he sought to create policies based on basic values that could create “protocols to guide us for the future,” he said.
‘Made by the people’
Axworthy said he was not “naïve” about how challenging it can be to bring faith into politics. But, he said, “we need courageous people,” who are willing to make choices based on their faith or spirituality.
This is especially important today, when the old international framework that has worked well since the Second World War “has been shattered.”
But that does not mean it is time to give up and “lament” what is happening. “We still have to commit to building a better future,” he added.
One change needed for that better future is electoral reform, he says.
“Parliament is not working very well when a government can be elected by voters in two provinces,” he said, referring to Quebec and Ontario. “It’s an anachronistic system that excludes many Canadians.”
Axworthy also lamented the way federal politics is centralized around leaders today. This made it hard to convince former prime minister Justin Trudeau it was time to step down. “There was no way to get him to do that.”
Axworthy says governments at all levels should also consult voters more.
“We’ve forgotten that Canadians want to be engaged,” he said, recalling that more than 1,000 public consultations were held to create the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“It was one of the largest deliberative acts of democracy in this country,” he said. “We have forgotten to do those things.”
Doing these things can turn Canada into a “North Star” for hope, Axworthy said. “I think we are capable of doing it. And even if we don’t succeed, it’s still worth people exercising their faith and hope in a risky way.”
Change will not happen all at once, but “day-by-day, week-by-week and conversation by conversation, moving forward,” he said. “It won’t fall from the sky. Change has to be made by people.”
The theme of the Our Whole Society Conference, which is sponsored by the Canadian Interfaith Conversation, was Fostering Hope in a Divided World.
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