Fleishman Hillard: The Political View

There is talk in the news today about the IMF / World Bank Meetings taking place this week in Istanbul.  The meetings come one year after the great collapse of the world’s financial giants and amid discussion around whether or not a real re-think of the regulatory model that underpins the global financial market. 

Much media attention over the past few days has focused on “push-back” by the developed countries as to whether the IMF needs more funds and whether or not the world needs better financial regulation (the latter being a predictable irony … now that the world’s financial institutions have been bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, they seem to think that nothing went wrong at all and everything can return to normal … wow!).

But that’s not what this post is about … on CBC Radio this morning, they talked about a deeper power struggle taking place in the IMF and World Bank.  It seems the developing world is no longer satisfied being the lesser second cousins of the developed economies and have decided to work together to exert greater influence in these international institutions.  The real quesiton is … will the current powers – the developed economies – allow it to happen.

And that’s where Canada comes in. I believe that Canada has a unique opportunity to truly shine and exert the kind of “soft power” that once made Canada a force to be reckoned with on the international stage.  Pearson was known for it – Trudeau was credited with continuing that effort and Mulroney did the same (particularly with his incredibly principled stand on Haiti back in the 80′s). 

In short, Canada should strongly support the efforts of the developing world to take on a greater role in the IMF and World Bank – and in other global institutions, such as the WTO.  Frankly, it’s the right thing to do.  These institutions have a disproportionate impact on developing economies and they should have an opportunity to influence how they are governed, financed and what rules they set out to support economies and financial markets.  But more than that … Canada was one of the drivers behind expanding the G8 into the G20 (under Paul Martin).  This is an opportunity to continue that tradition.  Moreover, throughout the financial crisis of the past year, Canada has been held up as a paragon of a well-managed financial regulatory system (true or not, it’s about time we use our influence when we have it).  As such, we’re in a unique position to use the influence gained from the credibility of being the only man standing at the end of a bloodbath to make a strong push for a redistribution of power in international circles.

Such a move will have an enormous impact on world power in international organizations and will position Canada as the broker who helped make it happen.  That’s something that these new powers won’t soon forget and will further strengthen Canada’s role in the world.

It’s not often that the right thing to do is also the politically beneficial thing to do … but this is one of those times.