bout de papier, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1996) — Summer 1996 // Été 1996, pp. 42–46
THE CANADIAN WAY (SHAPING CANADA’S
FOREIGN POLICY, 1968-1984) by Ivan Head
and Pierre Trudeau. McClelland & Stewart
Inc. Toronto. 361 pp. $29.99.
Reviewed by Geoffrey Murray
Among the recurring yarns concerning the Trudeau years this one may qualify as the most disappointing because it falls so far short of its potential for clearcut revelations, frank disclosures and persuasive rationalizations. This collection is admittedly conceived by Ivan Head and little more than blessed by the right honourable co-author. The book rambles on effusively and often monotonously about subjects Head selected to illustrate “the Canadian way” pursued by him and Trudeau — in harmonious tandem it seems — to bring about in due course for, however misguided they may appear from time to time. The disturbing element in this lofty endeavour is Head’s tendency to drift into ways and means glaringly un-Canadian for most of us. How are we to identify as “Canadian” the self-serving sermons, the often pretentious and inevitably portentous preachings, the bland assumption that because “we” (Head from Alberta, Trudeau from Quebec) saw situations eye-to-eye, they must be seen essentially as showing the Canadian way forward. The validity of this kind of assertion is routinely bolstered in their book with pregnant extracts from various prime ministerial speeches.
Earlier reviewers in various Canadian publications have shown their disdain. I want to be cautious about regurgitating those gripes in some cases. More important for me is a which I share — somewhat to my surprise wish to avoid earlier observations I have made from time to time, mainly in bout de papier, in the late sixties and beyond, when the about the to-ing and fro-ing that took place
Department (of External Affairs) and its Trudeau — were intensively engaged in for- political masters — including Prime Minister eign policy studies (as were other Government agencies) across a broad spectrum. Ivan Head was barely involved in that wide-ranging endeavour, apart from his acknowledged mischief-making in the Defence review. This presumably explains why the general review is barely mentioned in his recollections of personal participations in carefully selected events “shaping foreign policy.” The book acknowledges its “selective” approach to subject matter without offering much in the way of justification. It is part of the resort to the third person presentation and use of the royal “we.”
This selectivity of approach serves to open opportunities for structuring the various chapters in ways that render them immune to precise questioning, unless one were to attack them line-by-line. Chapters open with chosen chapter subject, say “North-South a pre-fabricated scenario for what is the Dimensions” or “The Neighbourhood.” There follows some identification of specified events constituting “crisis,” which more often than not is said to be exercising the media, above all in Canada. Head and Trudeau, after one-on-one consultation and cerebrating, decide on a course of action. This may suggest a “summit” encounter of some kind, or call for Head alone to soar off to the site of crisis, occasionally after private conversations with key actors, either in Ottawa or in other capitals. He may serve as the bearer of Trudeau thoughts or views, which are assumed to be germane, if not crucial. The “crisis” is thereby averted, or dissipates in hot air, unless in due course the Canadian way prescribed requires specific support by the Canadian Cabinet. That is not always forthcoming, bringing doleful ending to several chapters, but without much explanation why.
It should surprise nobody that a book enjoying prime ministerial blessing does not dwell on solid differences among ministers within the Trudeau Government. Yet differences there were. Some stemmed in all probability from those which frequently paralyzed their predecessors of the Pearson ministry, but others almost certainly devolved from the divisive strains of the wide-open leadership contest, before April 1968, when the youngish “amateurs” rallying around Trudeau rolled to victory over the older political pros backing Liberal veterans, six of whom saw themselves as worthy successors to Pearson. Subsequent policy initiatives of the newly elected Trudeau team — China’s recognition excepted — were bound to founder in the mire of those differences, as the avant garde battled with the more experienced old guard, and the middle roaders rolled their eyes helplessly. The infamous Defence Review (of 1968-69), the abortive Third Option (early 70s), the unfulfilled Law of the Sea Convention (the 70s decade) were among other key foreign affairs endeavours that yielded messy results. None of this in-fighting surfaces in Head’s account of the Trudeau interventions. His excursions abroad are largely portrayed as opportunities for Canada’s PM to explore intimately with other international “statesmen,” transcending ideas for bringing about a safer, saner world, the so elusive “new” world order, in a world that had not known much order for a very long time.
Nothing concrete is offered either concerning the most publicized flop in Trudeau’s early dabbling in international affairs, the so-called “general” review of foreign policy that emerged in June 1970, in the six-pack of pamphlets generically entitled “Foreign Policy for Canadians.” The shortcomings of that exhausting work of more than two years, engaging the attention of large segments of External Affairs for prolonged periods, were all too apparent at the time. But the weakest links in the whole chain of policy management lay in the shaky relationships: on the one hand between External Affairs and the new Government, led by a relatively unknown PM Trudeau; and on the other hand, between (and among) External Affairs and the complex of departments and agencies, having some say and stake in Canada’s international activities, in a rapidly changing world situation. The Minister (SSEA Sharp at first) was supposed to provide the link with the Government but his messages to officials at times seemed ambivalent. As for direct communication between the new PM and his undersecretary at External, especially at the outset of the Trudeau regime, Marcel Cadieux complained bitterly to me in August 1969 about the lack of consultation. Concurrently the Department’s influence among other key departments and agencies underwent a marked decline, even as they became increasingly involved in international activities.
At the same time, External Affairs saw a cooling of relations with the Privy Council Office, dubbed “the Prime Minister’s department” by some of its incumbents. Like the Prime Minister’s Office, the PCO from the outset of the Trudeau era showed a desire and aim to bring the various line departments more firmly under central control, stemming from the Prime Minister’s role and position of authority. This applied as much to the ministers concerned as to their sprawling, supporting bureaucracies. Some departments were seen as “priority problems” and External Affairs was one of them. I saw the list in the late summer of 1969 but I had heard much earlier that some people in PCO were determined “to cut External down to size.” In my experience, nobody around town was more interested in keeping External’s nose on the policy review grindstone than the PCO secretariat for the Cabinet Priorities and Planning Committee. Several of those officials were former officers from External. Like Head they had left for greener pastures but these and other PCO “technocrats” get little recognition in The Canadian Way, not even named in its copious and verbose footnotes. The same could be said about Head’s cohorts in the PMO.
There is plenty of name-dropping in the book. Here again there appears to be a deliberate process of selection. In the first chapter, suitable salutes and genuflections are offered to household gods of the golden age — “brilliant, competent public servants” — the names mentioned include most of the better known members of the older generation, who occupied positions of influence during and following WW II. “Encouraged by a new generation of public servants” (none identified at this point in the story) Trudeau recognized that a fresh look was needed (at foreign policies). The review launched by Pearson in 1967 (no names are mentioned but clearly this was the Robertson Review of 1967-68) was ’incomplete and rather unsatisfactory” so Trudeau called for a new review, “in part a follow-on.” It was intended to deal with a number of self-evident subjects, mentioned by Head and relating to changed conditions in the world. Elsewhere in the book the Robertson commentary is dismissed as a defence of the status quo, following from the gratuitous advice offered to the Windsor Star by Paul Martin the Elder, shortly before the leadership change. Essentially, the Robertson Report was written for and at the request of PM Pearson, as a considered comment on how specific public criticisms within Canada, about current foreign policies, might be allayed. The Report itself was not intended for public distribution. It was for Pearson to direct what further action might be needed or taken. Accordingly the Report was without doubt “unsatisfactory” for the immediate purposes of the new masters. The Trudeau crowd wanted their new broom to sweep away tired and tarnished policies. Above all they wanted to be seen and heard doing just that.
The co-authors do not deny the validity of Canada’s longstanding roles and influence as a middle power. But they were determined to be an “effective” power, not given to futile posturing and empty pronouncements. Accordingly their chapters regale us with painstaking accounts of top-level “debating” and informal confidential chats, involving Trudeau with other ranking world leaders from various regions. These encounters included prime ministerial visits, formal “summit” meetings, of the Commonwealth and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, for example. The G-7 Economic Summits may have become the highest pinnacle attained – though Head displays a missionary fervour for what he calls North-South dimensions. Summitry in NATO (a rare occurrence) is portrayed as an abysmal experience, if not rock bottom, as a forum for Trudeau-brand statesmanship. While he revelled in close consultations (at home and abroad) for intellectualizing the burning issues of his world, he seemed uncomfortable engaging in group discussions that involved decisions, as an immediate outcome, for solving acknowledged problems. He also showed little enthusiasm for United Nations proceedings, which involved long-winded, predictable and repetitive debates leading usually to voting on resolutions. By his time in office most UN bodies were dominated by representatives from the largest geographical groupings, with their own agendas and resolutions. Once he realized that the Commonwealth was no longer controlled, nor even relished, by the British, Trudeau saw easy openings for Canada to take centre stage, in proceedings routinely aimed at papering over cracks (agreeing to disagree) and achieving a conference communiqué, comfortable to all and free from risks of controversy — provided the media could be persuaded that Canada had played a key role, as ’helpful fixer’ perchance?
That role was left to the last act, the Trudeau peace initiative, which Head includes among his “Hits and Misses” in Chapter Eight. The scenario-setting in this case is bizarre in its scratching about to justify the peacemaker Trudeau’s efforts to convert diehard cold warriors, including Reagan and Thatcher. Why could we not be told frankly that it was all part of the “restoration,” accompanying Trudeau back to power after the Clark crowd fumbled their way out of office? It rhymes with the rest of this book in its unintended illustration of the limited influence Canadian political leaders, acting alone, can bring to bear on major world events. By the mid-decade, before Trudeau came to pass, we Canadians had noticeably foresaken our natural role among the middle-sized powers, working tightly together, and drifted into a sort of top-table mentality and aspiration, that gained us nothing worthwhile and left us instead, nowhere in the real power structure. With the support of a docile Canadian media, babbling constantly about mediation skills, peacekeeping prowess, and other myths deriving from our post-War good fortune and temporary prominence, our politicians of all stripes and capacity have struggled ever since to regain that Canadian way we lost in the general furore of the sixties.
There is little policy to be found in this book. It recites in painful detail a few carefully rehearsed happenings that are said to illustrate “our” policy at work. We are all left wondering still, after a quarter century, what was the policy that Trudeau “knew” he wanted. Head’s tales herein offer few clues and serve mostly to expose what may insiders guessed was his own meddlesome role. The right honourable master remains, not unlike Alice’s Cheshire cat enfin, an enigmatic smile, mocking and tantalizing, and offering little solace or guidance to the post- Trudeau leaders, as they meander “their” way down Canada’s long, long trail a winding, at home and abroad
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1996) — Summer 1996 // Été 1996, pp. 42–46. Read the rest of this issue →
