Team Lester, having determined that Canadian leadership in foreign affairs can only materialize in the context of a world-class foreign affairs public debate, has made the case for a bold, world-class foreign affairs magazine as a key vehicle for driving such debate.

To this end, we studied the intensity and character of Canadian print media coverage of top foreign policy issues and confirmed our initial hypothesis that the Canadian foreign affairs debate is poor–failing to hold political leaders to account, generate meaningful policy ideas and, most significantly, create a foreign affairs culture in Canada from which future Canadian world leaders may emerge.

In order to show how we may begin to address this poverty of debate, we conducted interviews with leading foreign affairs thinkers across Canada and did a case study of one of the world’s leading foreign affairs magazine, Foreign Policy, based in Washington, D.C. All of this work culminates in our own business case supporting the creation of the said bold, world-class Canadian foreign affairs magazine we call Lester Magazine, and–wait for it–an 80-page ‘mock-up’ or first edition of the magazine. So let it be written, so let it be done…