Not once in this long election campaign have Canadians heard an intelligent discussion about foreign policy.
There might be an argument here—since any serious effort to engage voters on foreign policy issues is barely audible in any election campaign—that it is best not to trifle with such complex matters in public. Foreign policy, after all, is the preserve of the party in power.
The last time we had an election where foreign policy became the major issue was the 1988 campaign over Brian Mulroney’s proposed Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. At that time, both opposition parties, Liberal and NDP, with their respective leaders John Turner and Ed Broadbent, tried in vain to rally anti-American sentiments against Mulroney’s Tories.
Much has changed in the world since then, yet no effort has been expended to pull together a new public consensus on Canada’s role in the world. Public opinion is adrift and wary at a time when a new consensus is greatly needed.
We need an intelligent and open discussion, led by political leaders educating the public and drawing them into a new consensus. What we have is a foreign policy driven by electoral calculations, often erratic and prey to fringe groups unconcerned about the country’s broadest interests.
Paul Martin portrayed himself, as he aspired to lead the Liberal party leadership and head the government, as someone who would bring a new coherence to Canada’s foreign policy. He reminded the country of his father, Paul Martin Sr., the distinguished secretary of state for external affairs under PM Lester Pearson, who was responsible for steering Canada during the difficult years of the Cold War.
Martin Jr. once candidly said he saw his main task as repairing the damage done to the primary Canada-U.S. relationship under PM Jean Chretien’s stewardship. Under Chretien, Ottawa broke ranks with President George Bush’s administration over the latter’s determination to bring regime change in Iraq. Chretien also barely disguised his opposition to U.S. foreign policy in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
During this election campaign, Martin has stooped to exploit the oldest trick in Canadian politics—rousing the sort of anti-Americanism that is the staple diet of the most blinkered lib-left segment in the country. Sticking to his goal to repair the Canada-U.S. relationship, on the other hand, would have required leadership.
Leadership without courage tends toward demagogy. Martin’s increased stridency over trade disputes with the U.S. has not helped the softwood lumber industry. Moreover, his remarks in Montreal at the UN conference on climate change went over the top. He chided the Bush administration for opposing the Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions: “To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience.”
Martin was wrong on the facts—Canada’s emissions record is worse than that of the U.S.—and even more wrong on what is needed in diplomacy with our most important ally. His ambassador to Washington, Frank McKenna—the former premier of New Brunswick and a likely contender to replace Martin as Liberal leader—was similarly uncouth when, several weeks earlier, he mentioned in a speech in Toronto with U.S. ambassador David Wilkins present that the American system of government is “dysfunctional.”
The response to both events from Washington was swift and instructive. Ambassador Wilkins stated it might be politically expedient to “almost relentlessly” criticize America, but “it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn’t have a long-term impact on the relationship.”
Disagreements among friends and allies are normal and healthy. What is deplorable is engaging in insults—the hallmark of Canadian anti-Americanism. Martin had assured Canadians he would do better, but his conduct has been a disappointment.
Our relationship with America should be the centrepiece of our foreign policy. The U.S. is our most important trading partner.
Canadian exports to the U.S. market average $1 billion per day, and 30% of all merchandise produced in Canada is sold to the U.S. Canada’s trade surplus with the U.S. amounts to about 10% of the total economy—prior to the 1994 NAFTA this figure was less than a third, and before the Mulroney government’s first free trade agreement, we ran a trade deficit with the U.S.
But the Canada-U.S. relationship is about more than trade. It is about history and people intimately bound together by geography. Post-1945, world geography provided Canada a role greater than its resources—a founding member of NATO, membership in the G7 and a special relationship with the U.S. defence establishment in the NORAD.
Hence, when Canada played the role of useful fixer, peacekeeper and promoted middle-power diplomacy as in the 1956 Suez crisis, success grew from the special access Ottawa maintained with Washington. Despite occasional bumps, as in the Diefenbaker years, the relationship gave Canada leverage in international politics to punch above its diplomatic weight.
But when Ottawa sought a “third option” with ties to Europe during the early Trudeau years, to distance and balance Canada-U.S. relations, or launched a peace mission between the two nuclear superpowers at the end of the Trudeau period, it achieved little.
Chretien sought a legacy for himself with his Africa initiative among G7 members, but failed without the firm support of Washington.
The lesson here is simple. Canadian idealism is much needed in a world wracked by diseases, poverty, regional conflicts and terrorism.
But only when a Canadian leader is a realist who can successfully manage the most important determinant of Canadian foreign policy—our relationship with Washington—can Canada be secure and prosperous, while remaining faithful to its ideals.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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