Quebec’s International Relations Minister Christopher Skeete, a member of the Coalition Avenir Québec, speaks at the legislature on June 1, 2023.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
Christopher Skeete makes other provincial politicians envious. When the member of Quebec’s legislature travels abroad, he’s treated like a proper diplomat.
In Paris, the French Foreign Minister meets him as an equal; when he’s in London, they fly the Fleur-de-lis next to the Union Jack; in Brussels, he’s invited to address the European Parliament.
The red carpets are rolled out because Mr. Skeete is Quebec’s Minister of International Relations, in charge of what is effectively a parallel foreign policy within Canada’s borders.
Since the 1960s, Quebec has sought recognition as an independent player on the global stage to assert its distinct identity and protect its interests. It now counts 62 offices abroad, when you include paragovernmental bodies such as Investissement Québec. According to one calculation by the public policy scholar Stéphane Paquin, that’s about the same number as every other province combined.
The scale of Quebec’s diplomatic ambitions is barely noticed by English-speaking Canadians – except in other provincial capitals.
“Alberta knows,” Mr. Skeete said with a grin during an interview last month. “They’re very jealous.”
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Of course, managing a nation’s international relations in today’s political climate isn’t just about bragging rights. As Canada seeks to strategically reposition itself amid the “rupture” in the U.S.-led world order described by Prime Minister Mark Carney last month, another smaller ship of state is trying to navigate the same choppy waters.
Beyond the jet-setting and flattering receptions, Mr. Skeete faces the task, in the age of Donald Trump, of reorienting a foreign policy most people don’t even know exists.
Quebec’s relations with the rest of the world have been governed since 1965 by something called the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine. Named after the provincial Minister of Education who formulated it, it’s often summed up by the phrase: “the external application of our internal jurisdiction.” Quebec governments of all political stripes have used that concept ever since to conduct diplomacy related to education, culture, natural resources and other provincial responsibilities.
At first, the federal government saw Quebec’s move into foreign affairs as a threat in the midst of a growing independence movement. It was premier Daniel Johnson who invited Charles de Gaulle to Quebec in 1967 when he delivered his famous "Vive le Québec libre" speech, earning a stiff rebuke from Ottawa. The following year, prime minister Pierre Trudeau was furious when Gabon invited Quebec to participate in an education conference for French-speaking nations.
Tensions around foreign policy between the two levels of government have tended to spike around referendums on separation. In 1995, Parti Québécois premier Jacques Parizeau sent a secret emissary to Paris in the hopes of convincing France to immediately recognize an independent Quebec after a “Yes” vote. (Neither France’s agreement nor the Yes vote was forthcoming.)
Jean Chrétien, meanwhile, liked to mock the sovereigntists’ diplomatic pretensions as nothing more than a yearning for “le flag sur le hood” of their official limousines.
Such conflicts have died down over time, as Quebec’s presence on the international scene has become normalized. The province now boasts its own presence on UNESCO through the Canadian delegation, and offices as far afield as Tel Aviv and Tokyo, often featuring official residences fit for a sovereign state.
Quebec boosted its staff in Washington before Donald Trump was elected as U.S. President for a second time, said Mr. Skeete: ‘We saw it coming.’ANNABELLE GORDON/AFP/Getty Images
When Reed Scowen was Quebec’s delegate-general in London in the late 1980s, he lived in a “magnificent” three-storey house with a maid, cook and driver, recalled his son Peter (a former Globe editorial writer).
The delegate-general in New York, meanwhile, inhabits a luxurious condo in the Museum of Modern Art building, whose coming renovation will cost more than $2-million, the government announced last year.
Quebec’s foreign operation is not like the trade offices maintained by other provinces, Mr. Skeete said. “It’s more organized, it’s better financed, it’s more systemic. It’s rooted in culture.”
It is also rooted in the United States. Quebec’s traditional bond with France has weakened since the 1995 referendum, said Jean-François Payette, a professor of international management at the University of Quebec at Montreal. The commercial significance of the U.S. has only grown in the age of North American free trade, and Quebec now operates nine offices spread out across the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Houston to Miami.
That presence on the ground prepared the Ministry of International Relations for the resurgence of Mr. Trump and some of the upheaval it would entail, says Mr. Skeete, a member of the centre-right Coalition Avenir Québec.
“We saw it coming,” he said. “We boosted our staff in the Washington D.C. office before the election of Trump, we maintained relationships with people in the MAGA movement, we knew Trump was going to win before he did.”
The ministry’s close relationships in the U.S. allow for lobbying campaigns in American states such as Georgia and Texas, whose legislatures have been persuaded to pass resolutions proclaiming their friendship with Quebec despite Mr. Trump’s trade war.
But like other nations watching the U.S. become a less reliable partner, Quebec has been pivoting toward friendlier shores. Mr. Skeete touted an agreement the province helped broker, in which the Quebec shipbuilder Davie will collaborate with a Finnish shipyard on a state-of-the-art icebreaker that will help shore up Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. In December, the minister also signed a deal with Britain to provide critical minerals such as titanium for the country’s defence sector.
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But Quebec has also been a team player in Canada’s broader diplomatic efforts this past year, especially under Mr. Carney. The province has found a “synergy” with the federal government on U.S. relations, noted former Quebec delegate-general to New York John Parisella. That marks a change of roles when Alberta and Ontario are finding themselves offside with Ottawa in their approach to Mr. Trump.
The current kumbaya moment could rapidly pass, of course, if a PQ government is elected in October with a promise to hold a third referendum, reigniting the “war of the flags” between Ottawa and Quebec City that put their respective foreign policies at odds in the 1990s.
But for now, Mr. Skeete claims the grubby business of domestic politics does not cloud the purity of Quebec’s international relations. Having a less “ideologically driven” federal government under Mr. Carney has been “refreshing,” he said.
Pressed to endorse a candidate in the leadership race to replace recently resigned Premier François Legault, Mr. Skeete demurred in the name of his diplomatic calling.
“I can’t for the life of me sum up the energy to care about that, given everything else that’s going on,” he said. “I’d rather be at Davos yesterday, promoting Quebec. I’d rather be in Japan next week. I’d rather be looking at Hanwha to see what kind of subs we’re going to buy. I’d rather be in Brazil looking to work more closely together to extract our minerals.”
Such is the rarefied life of someone with a flag sur le hood.