Justin Trudeau and Institutional Informality: Canada’s Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

An important and so far unexplored aspect of the Justin Trudeau government’s international policies has been its embrace of informal international institutions. In this chapter, I argue that the choice of informal institutions has been driven by geopolitical shifts, as well as the comparative advantages of such fora. To illustrate, I examine Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing important governance gaps, the government sponsored the creation of the Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 (MCGC) as a means of generating an international response to the obstruction of global supply chains and transportation hubs. This institution offered a flexible vehicle for managing uncertainty and addressing a fast-moving crisis. Canada engaged in other informal arrangements, including the Alliance for Multilateralism and key trans-governmental networks. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of these findings, including that informal institutions are likely to become an increasingly prevalent mode of international cooperation in the post-COVID-19 world.