Canada needs to fix its foreign policy in a troubled world

TORONTO—There are growing signs of unhappiness with Canada’s foreign policy—or more accurately, perhaps, the lack of a coherent foreign policy, one that safeguards Canada’s interests for the increasingly troubled and difficult world we seem likely to face over the next decade and beyond. This is why we need serious and immediate attention to Canada’s future place in the world and where our priorities lie. Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence clearly have to be more than clones of their U.S. counterparts. Canadian policy must be driven by a precise focus on our own national interests. While Canada can make it clear that it will never allow its space to be used as a base for an attack on the U.S., and while we should have no hesitation in backing the U.S. when we think it is on the right track, at the same time we should also have no hesitation in differing with the U.S. when we think it is wrong or when our national interests don't align. Interestingly, some of these voices of concern about the drift in Canadian policy, lack of focus on our core national interests, and a tendency to follow U.S. policy just to curry favour are coming from retired Canadian officials. A good example is the recent report for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute from Dan Ciuriak, a former deputy chief economist for Global Affairs Canada. Ciuriak warns that Canada is at a severe disadvantage in “a new world shaped by geopolitical great-power rivalry.” As a small open economy, Canada has prospered in a multilateral system where large and small economies followed the same rules, and were penalized when they didn’t. But those days seem over, the superpowers—and this includes the U.S., which helped lead the creation of the multilateral system—are flouting international rules often and with impunity. One blow came when the U.S. unilaterally shut down the dispute panel system of the World Trade Organization in January 2019. This, Ciuriak argues, “effectively shut down the rule of law in international economic relations” and meant that the WTO’s enforcement system of sanctions against countries offending the rules no longer functioned. Countries could break international trade rules with much impunity. The second blow resulted from the breakdown of the United Nations system when the organization failed to respond to the illegal invasion of Iraq by the U.S. in 2003, and the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This “effectively ended even the pretence of the rule of law in international political relations,” said Ciuriak. We now live in a world of realpolitik where it's power that counts. In such a world, Ciuriak argues, Canada is in a weak position because our domestic market is relatively small, our dollar is not an international currency, we have little ownership of technology that we can deny to others, and we lack the convening power in international organizations. Canada “is not a geo-economic player” and “the idea that Canada is back is illusory.” Too often, Canada has sacrificed its interests or pursued policies contrary to our stated values to curry favour with the U.S. For example, Ciuriak maintains, Canada should have warned Meng Wenzhou, the Huawei executive, not to come to Canada so that she would not face potential extradition to the U.S. The American request was part of its attempt to cripple Huawei, but it also had the effect not only risking the lives of the Canadian citizens, but also drove a wedge between Canada and China. The U.S. had not been happy with the Trudeau government’s efforts to expand Canada’s relationship with China. “There was no interest for Canada; meanwhile, the engagement put significant Canadian economic interests at risk and, as it turned out, put the lives of its citizens in harm's away,” said Ciuriak. Meanwhile, Canada supports sanctions against Yemen, a small impoverished country that poses no threat to Canada. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has been raining death and destruction on Yemen, carrying out more than 24,800 air raids since 2015. The effect of bombing and sanctions designed to cripple Yemen have probably led to more than 225,000 deaths. Canada participated in enforcing these actions yet there are no sanctions against Saudi Arabia despite its brutality. By enforcing these sanctions, Ciuriak argues, Canada “bears its share of the blame for the gratuitous deaths inflicted on Yemen” while it “imposes no sanctions on the coalition and indeed acts as an arms supplier for the Saudi-led coalition.” How Canada managed to manoeuvre itself into this position as a contributor to the world’s worst humanitarian disaster is “unfathomable and points to a need for a profound review of its policy-making, and certainly of its understanding of geo-economics.” So what should Canada do? Ciuriak argues that Canada must work hard to constrain the use of geo-economic power by the superpowers to the extent possible by actively supporting the rules-based multilateral system. And while Canada should respond when it is directly impacted by another country’s actions, it should avoid sanctioning countries that have not impacted Canada simply to curry favour. Sanctions rarely work but do add to human suffering. Canada should continue to pursue trade liberalization and Ciuriak says it makes sense to pursue free trade with ASEAN, for example. Moreover, Ciuriak argues, it makes little sense for Canada to be part of the U.S. Cold War with China. We don’t know how China will evolve over time, but we do know that it will become an increasingly important economic and technological power. It’s not in Canada’s national interest to shut the door on that relationship. Ciuriak has produced an important paper. It tells us is that we are making many mistakes and that we urgently need to focus on our core national interests so that our foreign policy, in a messy world, advances our own real interests in a much better way than we see today. In fact, we don’t have a real choice if we want a real country. Yet there are few signs in our national politics that this is well understood. David Crane can be reached at crane@interlog.com. The Hill Times