Senator Gold: That is a good question, but I don’t really have the ability to answer it adequately. Our relationships with the world — whether it’s commercial, political, strategic, intelligence sharing or others — are complex, polycentric and multi-faceted. In that regard, there is, no doubt, going to be tensions, pushes and pulls between the various objectives that characterize our foreign policy.

Canada’s feminist foreign policy is a serious engagement by this government, and, indeed, it is emulated and admired by others, and will continue to be, notwithstanding the fact that we live in a complicated, messy world — and our actions on behalf of Canadians, companies and individuals may not always line up with everyone’s expectations of what the priority should be.