Congratulations to The Walrus for the excellent on-line debate on Canada’s foreign policy (“Is Canada Disappearing From The World Stage?”) Yet, despite the many insights of your four contributors, it seems to me that they missed their target. The overarching change in Canada’s foreign policy is to be found in the federal government’s redefinition of Canada itself. It is a redefinition that aims at downgrading us as a nation-state and recasting us narrowly as an economy.
In the lead-up to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (apec) conference in Vancouver in 1997—the one made famous by the pepper spraying of demonstrators—a meeting was held between federal officials and representatives of civil society groups. As the discussions proceeded, some representatives noticed that the federal officials invariably referred to Canada as an “economy.” One prominent leader intervened and declared that Canada was a nation, not just an economy, and asked the officials to refer to it as such. They steadfastly refused.
While this may seem an esoteric conflict in the larger scheme of things, I think it speaks volumes. It reflects one of the most important imperatives of corporate globalization: the gradual displacement of nation-states (and all their peculiar, “trade-distorting” differences) in favour of a single global economy. The government of Canada is among the most committed of any developed nation to creating a new paradigm in which “barriers to trade” are so broadly defined that they include everything from supporting family farms to ensuring food safety.
How is this reflected in foreign policy? Talk to people who attend the hundreds of yearly international meetings on public-policy issues (poverty, the environment, health, education, human rights, economic development, water, food safety, education) and there is alarm at how the Canadian government delegations are now dominated by officials who, in effect, act as gatekeepers against any policy position that conflicts with Canadian trade and commercial liberalization. There are scores of both anecdotal and documented stories of ngos and even UN officials expressing shock and dismay at Canada’s radically altered stance on a whole range of issues.
One example comes from the report of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which, in November 1998, heard testimony from Canadian officials about what Canada was doing to address poverty. Our officials simply refused to accept any responsibility for the alarming increase in homelessness, reductions in welfare payments, or living conditions in First Nations communities. The UN committee members used almost unprecedented language in their response, accusing government delegates of “stonewalling,” “waffling,” and “avoiding the glaring facts.”
It is in this critical area that Canada’s foreign policy has changed most fundamentally in the past fifteen years. Though any one of these international forums may amount to little compared to, say, a decision about joining the invasion of Iraq, add up the thousands of such engagements and you find the main source of the admiration we used to attract around the world, especially from Third World delegations. When Canadian delegations met with those of other countries, they presented themselves as representatives of a complex, multi-faceted, multicultural, democratic, and unique community—a nation, not just an economy. The face we now present internationally is one of cold, hard, self-interested economics.
Canada still manages, sometimes, to live up to its past reputation. But those occasions are rare and usually the result of extraordinary efforts (e.g., Lloyd Axworthy on land mines, and Sheila Copps on the international initiative for enhancing cultural diversity). Kyoto and Canada’s refusal to join the invasion of Iraq were similarly aberrant—the result of Jean Chrétien’s desire for a legacy.
Stephen Handelman said in the debate that “there are fewer people looking for honest brokers these days, or for examples of enlightened global citizenship.” He is dead wrong. In fact, there are more and more people looking for—desperate for— enlightened leadership, most of them from the Third World. The pity is that they no longer find it from Canada.
Murray Dobbin
Vancouver, B.C.
In your on-line discussion of foreign policy, author and journalist Linda McQuaig took the position that Canada’s role in the world was not declining and that worrying about revitalizing our foreign policy is “a bit like worrying too much about impressing the neighbours.” McQuaig did acknowledge that there is “always room for improvement.” Her remarks, however, seemed to suggest that our current place in the world was just fine, and a significant revitalization of our foreign policy is unnecessary.
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