We need to do more than just invoke the name of our greatest diplomat to reframe our place in the world.
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For nearly a decade, we have witnessed a season of diplomacy many of us would not recognize as Canadian; a diplomacy which—for those of us who admire how Lester Pearson served on the world stage—all too often evoked something very close to shame. In very consistent fashion, Prime Minister Stephen Harper walked away from the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords but without offering up any kind of plausible alternative and then did what he could to obstruct progress on confronting climate change. While our closest allies continued to engage with Iran, Harper broke off relations—a drastic move in diplomacy and which in this case had absolutely no effect on the issue. We saw the most autocratic Prime Minister in our history refuse to attend a Commonwealth conference because he claimed to be concerned about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. He repeatedly snubbed the United Nations and then criticized the organization when Canada failed to win a seat on the Security Council. He reduced and soured our complex relations with the US to a single discordant file—moving oil—and along the way gratuitously insulted American officials on their home ground by informing them it was a “no-brainer” to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He also declared, again on US soil, that Canada wouldn’t take “no” for an answer from Washington—and found he had to do just that. He bragged that he talked tough to Vladimir Putin but that cheap and easy talk far from the front lines was all he had to offer. He left our navy seriously diminished.
All the policies, statements, optics and “tone” of Harperite diplomacy are inevitably viewed differently across the political spectrum, causing grief to professional diplomats, while being simultaneously cheered by his loyal base. Writing in the Toronto Sun in July 2014, a former Conservative minister Monte Solberg declared, “It’s a good thing Canadian foreign policy has moved past Lester Pearson, perpetual peacekeeping missions and unthinking support for UN types.” Perhaps there is one area where Harper’s base might want to hold their applause. A 2015 report from the Canadian International Council offered a far more objective appraisal of where Harper has positioned Canada on the world stage. The CIC has done this by looking at the federal dollars Harper allocated for defence, development, and diplomacy. The report’s assessment makes for sobering reading:
“Canada’s global engagement today is the lowest in the G7 (alongside Japan), the lowest among medium-sized open economies and, according to OECD and NATO statistics, the lowest in modern Canadian history. We have been laggards for years: today, we rank last. We are the least committed to global engagement of our international peer group.”
We don’t measure up to our allies. We don’t measure up to who we used to be. In fact, the report judges that Canada has essentially become a “free rider.” This unfortunate trend certainly did not start with Harper but he accelerated it and compounded the debilitating effects with his ineffectual posturing.
It was hardly surprising and with entirely fitting symbolism that Harper even removed the words “Lester” and “Pearson” from the business card of his foreign affairs ministers so that even though they worked in the Lester Pearson building, no one overseas would ever assume that our former Secretary of State for External Affairs and Nobel Prize laureate in any way represented anything that Harper wished to embody and espouse.
Now that Harper has been flung from power, there is a palpable sense at home and in the world that “Canada is back”—and not just because the new government keeps telling us this. We can see for ourselves the rare sight of a Canadian environment minister actually attending an international conference on climate change—and not throwing up roadblocks. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dispatched a letter to all ambassadors and high commissioners encouraging them to conduct acts of diplomacy without first asking permission from the PMO. Already Trudeau seems to have undone the sour state of relations with Washington by wisely backing off Harper’s blinding fixation on pipelines. And Trudeau’s continuing commitment to withdraw Canadian jets from the bombing campaign in Syria is being heralded by many as another example of our return to traditional Canadian values. Underscoring these official acts is the stunning outburst of generosity across the country as community groups have rallied to sponsor Syrian refugees. It is possible that Trudeau might even restore the name of Lester Pearson to the business card of the new foreign affairs minister.
However in the larger restoration, we need to do more than just invoke the name of our greatest diplomat to reframe our place in the world. We need to understand Pearson’s subtle, complex, and pragmatic approach to foreign affairs. He was, above all, a highly experienced professional who had served for almost three decades as a diplomat, seeing the rise and fall of the League of Nations, the creation of the United Nations, the disappearance of old empires, the capitulation to tyrants and the last-ditch rallying to defeat them. He had seen his country evolve from an invisible irrelevant player to become a credible, effective middle power.
"We need to do more than just invoke the name of our greatest diplomat to reframe our place in the world."
To follow in his wake, we need to understand that he was an idealist and a pragmatist. He would have been delighted to help a world government take shape but he also accepted the intractable power of national self-interest. He knew there were no easy, convenient military solutions to long-term political problems but knew that sometimes dropping an appalling bomb on an unarmed city was the only way to end a world war. He never thought peacekeeping was, in and of itself, the answer to every conflict and had only helped propose it as a temporary measure to arrive at a long-term political solution. He was a prime mover in calling for a Western defense alliance but he tried to make it stand for something (democracy, freedom) and not just against the Communist threat. He failed to make NATO a social and economic federation but—and this was so key to his approach—he did not abandon the compromised alliance. He knew the UN could never provide collective security in a world divided along Cold War fault-lines but he continued to support the palpably flawed institution. Compromise was inevitable and in diplomacy he understood that a small country could never get even close to everything it wanted and would invariably have to settle for third and fourth best.
If we want to regain some measure of respect in the world again, we will need to have a serious conversation on whether we want to pay for that role. Rebuilding in the wake of Harper’s neglect will take billions of dollars that we may prefer to spend on ourselves. Beyond the hard discussion on where to allocate our finite resources, the now unshackled officials at the newly renamed Global Affairs Canada (who as professionals I’m sure already possess Pearson’s sense of complexity), will hopefully advise the new Prime Minister and Minister that this is not a time to take refuge in dogma. We’ve just endured a decade of that dead-end approach. There will be times for hard power and times for classic negotiation; times to say nothing and time to speak forcefully, on our own and within the chorus of our alliances. Pearson transcended simplistic labels and strident approaches. Now, once again, so must we.
About the book: Saturday, November 3, 1956. The United Nations, New York City. About 10 p.m.
Lester Pearson, Canada's foreign minister (and future prime minister) stands before the United Nations General Assembly. He is about to speak, reading from a proposal composed of seventy-eight painstakingly chosen words. These words, shaped by caution and hope, are a last-ditch attempt to prevent a conflict in Egypt from igniting a conflagration throughout the Middle East. Pearson, in perhaps his finest hour, is about to carve out a razor's edge of common ground to bring together angry allies and bitter enemies by suggesting and making possible the creation of the first UN peacekeeping force.
Pearson's diplomacy throughout the Suez Crisis launched a blold experiment in international security and cemented Canada's reputation as "a moderate, mediatory, middle power." and yet, until now, no one has told the full story of how this Canadian diplomat led the world back from the brink of war. In a unique blending of biography and political history, Antony Anderson's The Diplomat draws from diplomatic cables, memoirs, diaries, anecdotes, official memoranda, and exclusive author interviews to create not only a compelling portrait of Pearson, the man at the centre of the negotiations, but also a nuanced analysis of the political maze navigated by Pearson to avert a bloody war.
About the book: Alliance and Illusion is the definitive assessment of the domestic and international aspects of Canadian foreign policy in the modern era. Robert Bothwell provides nuanced studies of Canada’s leaders and discusses international currents that drove Canadian external affairs, from American influence over Vietnam and the draft dodgers, to the French case of de Gaulle’s eruption into Quebec in 1967. This definitive recounting and assessment of Canadian foreign policy in the modern era fills a crucial gap in Canadian history and provides invaluable context for understanding Canada’s present-day foreign policy dilemmas.
Empire to Umpire provides a survey of Canada?s foreign policies and varying roles in international affairs, from dutiful member of the British Empire to second-tier power and peacekeeper. Beginning before the turn of the century when Canada took its first faltering steps into nationhood, Norman Hillmer and J.L. Granatstein, two of Canada?s leading historians, offer fresh insights into the events, the ideas, and the personalities that have influenced Canada?s participation in world affairs. Two competing forces dominate our international persona: the reliance on imperial strength, first British then American, for our security and economic prosperity; and the strong impulse to do what is right in, and for, the world. What happens when the "choirboy at the Concert of Nations" is called upon to sing duets with a dowager aunt or a rich southern uncle? That is the story Hillmer and Granatstein succeed in telling in this richly illustrated history of Canadian foreign policy.
Antony Anderson has written and produced for numerous Canadian and international broadcasters, including CBC Radio, the Discover Channel, History Television, and TVOntario. His independent documentaries for Global Television include Facing the Century and Foreign Fields, a critical look at Canada’s fading role on the world stage. His articles have appeared in The Dorchester Review, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Winnipeg Free Press, Hamilton Spectator, Vancouver Province, and Flare magazine.
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