As minister of International Development and La Francophonie, I have visited 15 or so countries and Canada's re-engagement was pointed out to me during each of them. But what does this re-engagement really mean? Here are five major achievements that speak to Canada's re-engagement on the international scene and the impact of our actions.

Despite huge cultural gaps, Chinese online literature, especially fantasy novels featuring martial arts and magical powers, has created a reading frenzy among foreign readers, Xinhua News Agency reports. Fascinated by the cultural elements contained in Chinese web novels and their imaginative plots, many foreigners have spontaneously begun to translate these works.

Contrary to its designer's expectations, the rolling research tracking the relative strength of national brands, now known as the Anholt/GFK Roper Nation Brands Index, is one of the most boring runs of numbers known to humanity. Unlike the Billboard music chart or the "Who's Hot" list in the celebrity-watch magazines, the nation brands index is astonishingly stable. 

Hockey, the sport that periodically pauses play to allow players to fight, is now helping foster diplomatic and business relations between Canada and China. In its preparations to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, China has asked for Canada’s assistance to help strengthen the country’s hockey culture and its hockey capabilities.

The Canadian PM said that good relations with the United States were compatible with Canada maintaining strong political and trade ties with Cuba. “Canada has always been a true and sincere friend of Cuba and we have never seen a contradiction between being great friends of Cuba and being good friends and partners with the United States,” he said.

For Monasterio and others, the visit merges soft diplomacy through cultural and student exchanges with state diplomacy. "It's in the people-to-people world ... where Canadian-Cuban relationships are the most significant," said Karen Dubinsky, who teaches in a joint Queen's University-University of Havana course that brings Cuban students to Canada and sends Canadian students to Cuba.