Welcome to Diplomatic Dispatch, a new podcast series by Radio Canada International.

My goal is to bring you insights into Canada’s foreign, defence and development policy.

I’ll discuss Canada’s global role through interviews with policy makers, former and serving diplomats and soldiers, academics and think tank experts, humanitarian workers, civil society activists and entrepreneurs recorded at the Summit on Canada’s Global Leadership in late November of 2019.

Robert Greenhill is executive chair of Global Canada (Photo courtesy of Global Canada).

The event was organized by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC), the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID), the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI).

There I met with Robert Greenhill, executive chair of Global Canada and former president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Greenhill says the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to take a page from its recent defence policy and commit to serious increases in its international development budget.

"If you don't want a climate crisis become a catastrophe, we have to help developing countries leapfrog how they're doing energy," Greenhill says. "If we don't want to have the Zikas, the SARS, the Ebolas, as just being early examples of terrible pandemics in the future, we need to improve healthcare systems around the world.

"If we don't want to have Western Europe that is massively destabilized because of millions of irregular immigrants and refugees, we all have a vested interest to help places like the Sahel and others be able to take control of their own destiny in a more successful way."

This is Episode Five: A Marshall Plan for the 21st century

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