bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1992) — Fall 1992 // Automne 1992, pp. 15–18
“When Canada is gone, the world will mourn,” said an eminent Canadian citizen at the Conference on Canadian Foreign Policy in Toronto last winter: His words were repeated by other speakers and aptly reflected the somber, quietly despairing mood of the Conference, which had been planned to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Statute of Westminster.
The Conference (December 9-11, 1991) addressed the question, Has Canada Made a Difference? It soon became evident to a foreign guest, however, that the more fundamental concern of the Conference was whether Canada could stay together as a nation so that it might continue to make a difference.
The Conference was convened under the aegis of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Department of External Affairs. Participants included Members of Parliament, retired statesmen, top historians and journalists, leading businessmen, and more than thirty officials of Canada’s elite Foreign Ministry — “External” in the lingo of official Ottawa. Invited to join the Canadians, were numerous foreign ambassadors and international civil servants, along with various representatives from Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Third World, and the United States.
The discussions took place in an atmosphere of genuine soul-searching among some of Canada’s leading citizens. They featured remarkable candour in the give-and-take of a kind which is perhaps only possible in a situation of perceived emergency. The Conference thus afforded a unique vantage-point on the country, its problems and prospects, at a time of profound dislocation in the system of government and politics.
What follows is an account of the Conference by a longtime American friend of Canada who was privileged to be present at those discussions.
In a country that appeared to be coming apart, the Conference came together quickly on the essentials of Canada’s proper role in the world. This process was the more remarkable for all the potential divisions that might have been exposed: the mandarins with their self-serving myths, as against the academics who are rewarded for their revisionism; the global activists as against proponents of retrenchment; and English-speaking Canadians as distinct from Quebeckers. Yet nothing of the kind happened; and therein lay an important clue — or so it seemed to this observer — as to the likely outcome of Canada’s domestic predicament. The discussion also laid bare some of the deeper sources and motives of Canada’s tradition of activist diplomacy.
In her keynote address, the External Affairs Minister described the Conference as part of “this country’s process of constitutional renewal” and touched on the role of global activism in creating the identity of the state. Canadian foreign policy, she noted, “has, in itself, been an important integrating force in the very unity of this nation.” A policy-planning document released by External was even more explicit:
Au surplus, la politique étrangère a d’importantes conséquences pour l’unité nationale. Une politique étrangère dynamique est un moyen pour les Canadiens d’exprimer leurs valeurs communes, de partager leurs aspirations et de renforcer leur identité.
The Conference was hardly Barbara McDougall’s finest hour. The news media neglected the substance of her keynote speech, which was intended as a major address on the direction of Canadian foreign policy in the 1990s, and focused instead on her faux pas to the effect that the Québécois would have their passports lifted if they voted for Quebec sovereignty in the Referendum. But she was obviously right, perhaps in a deeper way than she herself knew, that the values and assumptions of Canadian foreign policy represent an essential binding ingredient between state and society.
The Conference agreed that Canada must continue to realize its identity through an activist global diplomacy, international environmental leadership, pursuit of world peace, and Third World economic and social development. At the mere mention of a United Nations agency, peoples’ eyes would light up, the discussion would take on an edge of high adventure, and a palpable shiver of Wilsonian idealism (as an American would describe the sensation) would run through the room.
To an American visitor, nothing was more fascinating than to watch eminent speakers from Quebec become caught up in the thrill of global activism as they analyzed, refined, and criticized the traditions and assumptions of Canadian foreign policy — and ended up embracing them as their own.
Early on, the Conference heard from Ivan Bernier of the Centre québécois de relations internationales in Quebec City, who discussed Quebec’s role, along with Ottawa’s, in La Francophonie. Bernier described the development of quasi-diplomatic representation for Quebec. He concluded that Quebec diplomacy has enhanced the distinctiveness of Canada’s presence abroad. But he stressed that Quebec’s diplomacy should remain modest in its ambitions, learning to work in tandem with Ottawa.
Another Quebec authority, Louis Balthazar of Laval University, began by sharply criticizing the “old boys club” aspect of the traditional Anglo-Canadian diplomatic service from which talented francophones were sometimes excluded. Noting that English was the working language at External until the 1960s, he went on to analyze some strikingly different attitudes toward foreign affairs among the elites of Ontario and Quebec. Yet in his conclusion, Balthazar came around to the consensus view: “This asymetrical Canada has expressed a difference.”
On the history of arms control and disarmament, always a major preoccupation of Canadian policy, the Conference heard from Professor Albert Legault, also of Laval, whose presentation was a model of balance and erudition.
Not one francophone speaker suggested, much less argued, that an independent Quebec could do as well as Ottawa on the world stage. No Quebecker disagreed that in some nuanced, yet significant, sense Canada has made a difference and should continue to do so.
A consultant from Montreal, Angéline Fournier-Tombs, who edits the influential intellectual review Cité Libre, pointed to a hard truth in observing that Canadian official development assistance to the Third World needs greater focus and that Canada could not be all things to all people. But these were criticisms from within the very heart of Canada’s liberal internationalism.
There was no dissent from Quebec on the basic philosophy or direction of Canadian foreign relations. The unifying function was a marvel to behold.
At the same time, there was something too good to be true about Canadian foreign policy. At some level it did not compute. Was this a nation-state operating on the usual calculations of national interest or an international social relief agency like Oxfam? Canada has made a religion of global activism — why? A foreigner begins to wonder what is being left unsaid.
Every significant meeting has its moments of absolute lucidity, and for the Toronto Conference one of these occurred when Arnold Smith, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, took the floor to address the deeper motives of Canadian foreign policy.
Looking to be in his seventies, Smith was in some ways the senior statesman of the Conference. As the first head of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London in 1965, Smith played a key role in transforming the group of former British colonies – having no unifying ground except a common past and an agreement to recognize the Queen as the symbol of their unity — into a multiracial and multicultural organization focusing on issues of Third World development.
“The whole point of our foreign policy,” said Arnold Smith, “was to get Canada out of North America — out of North America and away from the United States.”
As Smith explained it, Canadian foreign policy was shaped in the larger context of Canada’s struggle for survival in the face of American “continentalism,” the perceived tendency of the United States to expand culturally, economically, even politically and militarily if need be. By getting Canada out of North America and deeply ensconced in multilateral organizations, External had enabled the country to focus on world politics rather than just the American news; to make friends in all parts of the globe; and to pursue a world role distinctly different from the USA’s. External gave Canadians a sense of participation in the world community that no one could confuse with the policies of the Pentagon or the CIA. Thus, Canada was able to do things that the United States, with its continental absorption and military preoccupation, could not. An American listener was impressed again by the self-consciously internationalist identity of the Canadian federal state.
“Our greatest horror, ,” Smith said, “was the thought of being left alone in North America with the United States.”
So Canada’s global activism, for all its undoubted idealism, turns out to have a clear domestic purpose. What may look like simon-pure internationalism is really the continuation of Canadian nationalism by other means.
Then, rising to the occasion, Smith addressed the domestic political crisis on everyone’s mind. A solution to the present troubles will be found, he said, when Canadians remember their common historical problem of resisting American continentalism. Any necessary adjustments regarding Quebec should be viewed in the long history of peaceful decolonization within the Commonwealth system.
“The Americans had their bloody revolution,” he observed, “but we chose a different way — and not just the Loyalist, but the French-Canadians, too, who saw in the Declaration of Independence an explicit threat to their distinct society. The Americans attacked Montreal, they besieged Quebec. We resisted. Then the Americans invaded us in the War of 1812, and again we resisted.”
“Later on,” Smith continued, “we had a perfectly reasonable agreement with the Americans for joint occupation of the Oregon Country, but then they said, ’No, we want it all: Fifty-four-forty or fight!’ But that wasn’t our way. And let’s not forget that the Canadian Confederation was created in the 1860s because we were afraid of being invaded once again.”
“The Americans had their secession crisis,” he said, alluding to Canada’s present crisis, “and they solved it through violence in a Civil War that left half a million dead. They still celebrate that conflict as an achievement of their system. Well, that’s not our way to solve problems. Then the Americans allowed violence to rule the frontier — and that wasn’t our way either.”
Knowing everyone in the room was familiar with this history, Smith proceeded to his conclusion: “My point is this. We in the Commonwealth have a different way — law and order of course, but above all government by discussion. It’s the basis of our system. Government by discussion, not violence; discussion, not pandering. It is what created this country, it has seen us through difficult times in the past; it’s what we’re doing at this Conference; and it will see us through the present crisis.”
It was a moment of exalted sentiment which served to remind Conference participants, even those who did not share Smith’s nostalgia for the Commonwealth, that the fundamental purpose of Canadian foreign policy is not to save the world but to resist the United States. Having been legitimated by an elder statesman, the subject could now be broached directly. Soon, one of the French-Canadians observed that, “Quebec has its own way of resisting the invasion of the United States.” Other speakers worried openly that Canada might end up an American satellite under the “New World Order” of President Bush.
The Conference’s second moment of total clarity came during an impassioned plea from the former Ambassador of France to Canada.
The symbolism was perfect. France played a major role historically in the development of Quebec separatism. Twenty-five years ago, French President Charles de Gaulle, appearing on the balcony of the city hall in Montreal, uttered the fateful words “Vive le Québec! Vive le Québec Libre!” And for years, French diplomacy continued to encourage separatism. So, the expression of France’s current attitude would be very influential.
“I am Jean Béliard,” said the gentleman at the microphone, “and when I was the Ambassador of France to this country, from 1981 to 1984, we had a very interesting triangular relationship among Paris, Ottawa, and Quebec City which did not lack its challenging aspects, I can assure you.”
“But ladies and gentlemen, I must take exception to the remarks of the last speaker, and of other speakers at this Conference, who said that when Canada is gone, the world will mourn – the world will mourn the death of Canada, or words to that effect. This is pious nonsense,’ ,” he declared. “The relations between states are not based on such sentimental considerations, though I appreciate the moralism which leads you to express yourselves in this way.”
“No, my friends, the world will not mourn Canada. The children of the world Will not cry for you, when you are gone. But many serious men and women will ask themselves, and pause to consider, how it happened that the country which had everything — everything — threw it all away!”
“This is no time to be planning Canada’s funeral. This is no time to console yourselves over the length of the funeral cortège. You must stop writing obituaries for Canada. Your country is in danger! Your nation is in mortal peril! You must steel yourselves to your duty to preserve the state!”
Ambassador Béliard, who earlier in his career served as General de Gaulle’s translator, spoke in English as well as in French. Some weeks later, Le Monde, perhaps reflecting its legendary ties to the Quai d’Orsay, observed that “Canadian federalism, which is very respectful of minority rights, enjoys a very high reputation abroad.” Diplomacy can be very subtle, but perhaps this was France’s way of saying that the world needs Canada; and, yes, that Canada has made a difference.
As the Conference was winding up and attendees were heading home to Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver, an American guest could not fail to note the many disturbing parallels with the political situation of the United States on the eve of the Civil War.
At the center is a moral issue — an issue of human equality or subordination — which has bedeviled the nation’s politics for decades. There is a weak head of government, a sense that the system is adrift, and a widening gap between the political establishment in the capital and popular sentiment in the provinces. Finally comes the shattering of the traditional party structures, the rise to respectability of extremist elements, and the eery atmosphere of inevitability as the secession crisis rushes to climax. No one expects a Civil War in Canada — it is not the Canadian way, as Arnold Smith says — but no one outside Canada should doubt that the crisis facing the country is of the first magnitude.
The gravity of Canada’s predicament notwithstanding, an American left the Toronto Conference with a clear, if unexpected, sense of certain distinctive and underlying strengths in the Canadian polity. Working together, and with adequate leadership and more than a little luck, these fundamental strengths of the Canadian system – which are perhaps not fully appreciated in Canada itself — may yet see the country through. They are four in number.
First is the presence of a cohesive governing class, comprising not only the mandarins of the civil service but prominent citizens across the country, which are prepared to put the interest of the nation above those of linguistic, ethnic, regional or provincial allegiance. The role of such a class (an American uses the term with some trepidation) in stabilizing the body politic cannot be overestimated. The United States once had a group of this kind, the old “foreign-policy establishment” of happy memory, but it destroyed itself during the debacle of the Vietnam War. Today in Canada the foreign-policy establishment is stronger than ever, and is eager to lead. It is almost completely bilingual and bicultural, and includes many younger people from Quebec, as well as English-speaking Canada. Members of this group have a role in explaining to fellow citizens across Canada the foreign-policy implications of national unity.
A second factor conducive to stability is Canada’s distinctive political culture, which centers on the affirmative role of government and which has the resources to frame and analyze key policy choices in historical terms. The instinctive Canadian belief in the dignity and majesty of the state, at least in principle, means that the rewards of the government system belong to those who serve it honourably and well from the inside rather than, as in the United States, to those who manipulate the system from the outside for private advantage. And the emphasis on history as one of the core intellectual disciplines of public life insures a continuous discussion between past and present, history and politics. True, the emphasis on the past has its downside — Quebec’s bitter historical memories of conquest and subordination are a prime example. But the statist and historicist character of Canada’s dominant political culture — shared by the Tories, Liberals, and Socialists alike — is a powerful inducement to continuity. Canada’s leaders know that if the country is destroyed, history will judge them very harshly.
A third factor making for unity is the tradition of parliamentary rule. In theory, the parliamentary system enables a ruling party to legislate in the long-term interest of the government, with minimal day-to-day regard for the vagaries of opinion polls or the pressure of special interests. This relative structural insulation from public opinion can permit a Government to do the right thing even if the move is momentarily unpopular (thus, in Canada, there is no death penalty). The tradition of parliamentary rule may be fraying around the edges in today’s Canada, where newer forms of public participation are more and more in demand. But it is still in place. In fact, as several people at the Toronto Conference observed with a mixture of irony and hopefulness, the British parliamentary system operates in almost pristine fashion in the province of Quebec.
A fourth and final reason why Canada may avoid disintegration is the inevitability of the ten provincial Governments facing up to the reality of just exactly what it would mean to be a miniature nation-state on this continent — back in North America, alone with the United States. At some point, the Canadian people must come to grips with what their actual choices are, and are not.
American friends of Canada should be frank on this point. The United States is a highly creative and original society, envied around the world for its particular genius, but there are limits to what our system can absorb. Make no mistake: the United States would not be prepared to accommodate union with any of the Canadian provinces on terms that were other than humiliating. The American republic can assimilate many things, but it would not be willing to support the independent fishermen of the Maritimes and Newfoundland, many of whom are unemployed for part of each year, who would end up welfare bums under our system; or to welcome the people of Alberta, unless they first subjected their healthcare system to the discipline of our American free market. Obviously there is no place in the American system for the mandarins of Ottawa, or the socialist governments of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, or Ontario. As for Quebec, whose system of business-government relations most nearly resembles that of the Japanese, a province where trade unionism flourishes and social programs are lavish, there will be no succour from Washington if the separatist experiment were to prove disappointing. Perhaps it is enough to observe that a society which can barely tolerate Spanish among its poor would in no circumstances be prepared to indulge French among its rich.
Such are the realities of being alone in North America.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1992) — Fall 1992 // Automne 1992, pp. 15–18. Read the rest of this issue →
