Years As A Cabinet Minister
When the Liberals returned to power in 1993 under the leadership of Jean Chrétien, Axworthy became one of the most important Cabinet ministers. After the election, he was given responsibility for the vast new Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), and launched a major overhaul of employment insurance.
Axworthy's true interest was in international relations, and in a 1996 cabinet shuffle, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, where he excelled, becoming a strong advocate of Canada's tradition of multiculturalism. His greatest success was the Ottawa Treaty, an international treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines. He also campaigned against the use of child soldiers and the international trade in light weapons.
In 1999, Axworthy supported Canada's involvement in NATO's bombing campaign of Yugoslavia over the issue of Kosovo. The 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's and Canada's most controversial act as its first deliberate non-defensive aggression against another sovereign state.
Read more about this topic: Lloyd Axworthy
Famous quotes containing the words years, cabinet and/or minister:
“Jim Wilson: Cops have no friends. Nobody likes a cop. On either side of the law. Nobody.
Captain Brawley: Is that what you want? People to like you? Then you’re in the wrong business and you ought to get out.
Jim Wilson: It’s the only job I know. Has been for eleven years now.
Captain Brawley: Then make up your mind to be a cop. Not a gangster with a badge.”
—A.I. (Albert Isaac)
“In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldy and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it’s power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of their virtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)