Nine years ago, not long before Stephen Harper’s Conservative government was replaced by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, retired diplomat Paul Heinbecker penned a brutal takedown of Canadian foreign policy.
To Heinbecker, Harper’s appointment of five foreign ministers (and two more acting foreign ministers) over nine years indicated his government didn’t take the file seriously. That lack of seriousness helped explain why American presidents only visited three times between 2006 and 2015, leaving Canada “on the margins of global relevance.”
Heinbecker concluded disparagingly:
“The Harper government has turned foreign policy outside in. It has treated foreign affairs often as a means to cultivate diaspora communities and constituencies at home…. Foreign posture has replaced foreign policy.”
Harper, Trudeau similarities
Nine years later and another former diplomat, David Mulroney, has admonished the Justin Trudeau government’s approach to foreign policy with equal harshness.
“Canadians show up to lecture, not listen,” he wrote in a National Post op-ed.
One of Trudeau’s own ministers of global affairs, Marc Garneau, apparently concurs:
“Unfortunately, Canada’s standing in the world has slipped, in part because our pronouncements are not always matched by a capacity to act or by actions that clearly demonstrate that we mean what we say …. We are losing credibility.”
Garneau was the fourth of Trudeau’s five foreign ministers. Since 2015, American presidents have visited Canada just twice. And just like the Harper Conservatives failed in their bid to secure a seat for Canada on the United Nations Security Council in 2010, so too did the Trudeau Liberals in 2020.
Read more: UN Security Council: Actually, the world doesn't need more Canada
The similarities don’t end there.
Neither Harper nor Trudeau commissioned a foreign policy review. Neither fully funded the military. Both positioned women and children at the centre of relatively meagre international assistance programs. And, like Harper’s, much of Trudeau’s focus in foreign affairs seems aimed at courting domestic groups.
‘Unavoidably reactive’
Our new history of Canadian foreign policy, Canada First, Not Canada Alone, explains why these similarities are unsurprising.
Canadian governments have limited flexibility in their conduct of external affairs. As one group of foreign policy experts once said:
“Especially for the smaller powers, the conduct of foreign policy is to some extent unavoidably reactive. For those that are securely placed and richly endowed, like Canada, the messes they confront are usually not of their own making, and the pressures they face are largely beyond their control.”
What’s more, the country’s miraculous avoidance of a significant international attack over the last 150 years leaves most Canadians feeling safer than they probably should. In this context, it’s difficult for decision-makers to make foreign policy a strategic priority.
Laments about the decline of Canada’s contribution to world affairs began in the 1970s, and have continued ever since. These concerns have typically been reasonable, even when Ottawa’s intentions were sincere.
Read more: Canada needs a focused and flexible foreign policy after years of inconsistency
Harper genuinely wanted to elevate the place of the Armed Forces in Canadian society, only to discover that success in Afghanistan was impossible and supporting our military was incredibly expensive.
Trudeau’s pledge to restore Canada’s peacekeeping tradition when he became prime minister was real; he only abandoned it upon realizing that peacekeeping in the contemporary operating environment risked a significant loss of Canadian lives.
To date, such reversals have had limited consequences. Long protected by three oceans and a friendly giant to the south, successive governments in Ottawa have been able to ignore problems that bedevil less geographically fortunate countries.
Pivoting in a changing world
But more recent global challenges — brutal wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, climate change, supply chain disruptions, election interference, American political polarization — serve as stark reminders that the world is changing in ways that necessitate a more active Canadian global posture.
That new approach requires co-operation with allies and international organizations, not to mention a significant economic investment.
The recipe for Canada First policies — those that keep the state and its people secure within a stable international system, economically prosperous, politically autonomous and united at home — is easier to articulate than it is to implement.
It requires not just a functioning, productive relationship with our critical ally to the south, but also a commitment to a rules-based international order and multilateral approaches to conflict resolution.
Read more: How minority governments can influence foreign policy
Engaging in diplomacy
Foreign policy practitioners negotiate and compromise, doing what is necessary to maintain credibility at home and overseas. They act without the benefit of hindsight, frequently under political pressure and short time frames.
When they fail, the consequences of their actions are obvious. Their successes can be harder to measure, leading some to view the practice of diplomacy as elitist, exclusive and ineffective.
At times that may be true, but that doesn’t detract from diplomacy’s key role in Canada’s viability as an independent, prosperous country. A willingness to engage in diplomacy in defence of Canadian interests must also be matched by investments in the capacity to act globally.
The future of Canada depends on decision-makers with the humility to recognize that standing alone on the world stage is no way to protect and promote the national interest.
Adam Chapnick and Asa McKercher received funding for this project from the Canadian Defence Academic Research Program.
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This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
