Lloyd Axworthy - Definition and Overview

Lloyd Norman Axworthy (born December 21, 1939, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian politician who is best known for having served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Jean Chrétien. Axworthy is currently President of the University of Winnipeg.

Axworthy was born in Saskatchewan to a family with strong United Church roots. He received his PhD from Princeton University before returning to Canada to teach at the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg.

Axworthy became involved in politics during the 1950s, becoming a member of the Liberal Party after attending a speech by Lester Pearson. He briefly aligned himself with the NDP in the 1960s when Pearson, as federal opposition leader, called for American nuclear warheads to be allowed on Canadian soil. He soon returned to the Liberal fold, however, and worked as an executive assistant for John Turner (supporting his bid to become party leader in 1968). He ran for the party in Winnipeg North Centre in the 1968 election, and finished a surprisingly strong second against veteran New Democratic MP Stanley Knowles.

Axworthy's first political success came at the provincial level. He first ran for the Manitoba legislature in the 1966 election, placing second to Tory Douglas Stanes in St. James. In the 1973 election, he was elected as a Manitoba Liberal in Fort Rouge, a riding which bordered on that held by party leader Izzy Asper. He was re-elected in the 1977 election, and was the only Liberal in the legislature from 1977 to 1979. He resigned on April 6 of the latter year to run for the federal House of Commons, and in the 1979 election narrowly defeated former provincial Tory leader Sidney Spivak in Winnipeg--Fort Garry.

He was re-elected in the election of 1980, and became a cabinet minister in the government of Pierre Trudeau, serving first as Minister of Employment and Immigration and then as Minister of Transport.

In the Liberal defeat in the 1984 election Axworthy was the only Liberal from the Prairies to be elected. Axworthy played an important role in opposition, forcefully attacking the government of Brian Mulroney and was an especially vocal critic of the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

When the Liberals returned to power under 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. Axworthy excelled in this position, becoming a strong advocate of Canada's tradition of multilateralism. His greatest success was the Ottawa Treaty, an international treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines, for which he was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. He also campaigned against the use of child soldiers and the international trade in light weapons.

In September, 2000 Axworthy retired from public life and returned to academia, joining the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. He is also a frequent public speaker on matters relating to international relations and has published a number of books on the subject. He has served as a United Nations envoy tasked with resolving the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute. In May of 2004 he was appointed to his current job as president of the University of Winnipeg.

In 2003 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.