Canadian Polemic

It hasn't really been a big campaign issue, that's for sure, but one of the biggest policy and leadership disappointments in Ottawa (for me at least) over the past few years has been Canadian foreign policy. Or the lack thereof, I suppose. Paul Martin's Liberals have for several years trumpeted their creation of a role of 'pride and influence in the world' for Canada, but haven't delivered. As a matter of fact, it goes back to Jean Chrétien, who spent way more time worrying about domestic issues than international ones. Despite what his supporters may say, refusing to do something (ie. the Iraq war) does not a foreign policy make. A foreign policy can't just be what we don't do. The question is, though, if any of the current leaders can offer anything better.

I should first note that for me, an ideal Canadian foreign policy would be one in which we do not hestitate to stand forward and be vocal about injustice when and where it happens. And further to that, we should be willing to put our money where our mouth is, and volunteer resources, soldiers, logistics or other support to ensure that we can follow through. Canada must act in a way that recognizes both our national interests and the world's human interests - two notions that are not always incompatible. Canada should lead a moral foreign policy - God knows the world needs it.

So has Paul Martin's foreign policy been a success? I would say, quite spectacularly, no. What was Mr Martin's guiding principle in terms of how Canada interacted with the world? Well, he ricocheted from not having any to having too many. His L-20 suggestion, a fundamentally-good idea, was mostly ignored. Despite Ottawa telling us how involved Canada is in Darfur, the violence in that country continues. Ottawa had trouble even standing up to Iran when one of our citizens, Zahra Kazemi was murdered. Canada refused to commit to a timeline for implementing the 0.7% target for foreign aid - a target originally set by Canadians! Some supporters will point to Canada's refusal to stay out of the U.S. missile defence programme and Mr Martin's supposed willingness to stand up to the United States. Again, a foreign policy is not solely what we do not do, and to judge it solely based on that is inappropriate. But also, Mr Martin has needlessly antagonized the United States - that's not standing up, that's just being stupid and trying to gain cheap political points. I fail to be impressed by Martin's foreign policy - though I'd love to be convinced otherwise.

Let's look at what the other parties are offering. Are any of them willing to commit to the moral foreign policy that (I think) Canada and the world both need and deserve? Well, the Liberal platform consists of a lot of repetition of what the Martin government has supposedly done, which isn't really much of a platform. And some of those observations aren't really anything to do with Mr Martin (the fact that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is a Canadian, for example). New ideas include a ban on all space weapons and Pearson Scholarships for international and Canadian students to study multilateralism and international relations - both decent ideas, but not really smacking of much vision. And lacking the moral component, as well.

The Conservative plan is pretty darn vague - the Tories will "articulate Canada's core values [...] on the international stage." OK, great. They'll also advance our interests through foreign aid and let Parliament ratify treaties. Doesn't it already do that? At any rate, not much vision and even fewer concrete ideas for how Canada should act internationally. The New Democrat version is equally uninspiring, on the whole. Pledging to only commit Canadian troops to missions under international organizations seems to me to be rather closed-minded and inflexible, and cleaning up DND dumpsites isn't really foreign policy. Like the other two parties, some interesting ideas, but no coherent vision and no mention of the ethics needed in foreign policy.

It's fairly obvious to me that none of the current parties offer a coherent, viable or moral vision of Canadian foreign policy, which is unfortunate. I want to make it clear, though, that Canada has done good things internationally in the past few years - but we're not doing as much as we could, as well as we could. As a nation, we must formulate something along the lines mentioned above or risk having our influence in the world slip further and further away. Canada can play an important role, a moral and ethical role, but we're not on track to do so at any time in the near future with the leaders that we have. For more great reading on the subject, take a look at Jennifer Welsh's book, At Home in the World.

HAT-TIP: Kudos to The Blog Report over at the CBC for the attention yesterday.

GIMMICK ALERT: WestJet is giving away free flights anywhere in Canada on the day after the election to anyone with the same last name as one of the 5 federal leaders. Anyone willing to look at a quick name change for the sake of a free flight? Congrats to those lucky enough to get it without the bureaucratic rigmarole.