Liberals play catchup — finally
Commentators have been hailing this week’s major policy speeches by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan as significant. They aren’t wrong to do so. The speeches were indeed important, just not for the reasons commonly cited.
In the case of Freeland’s speech, analysts have largely focused on her polite but clear message to the United States: that Canada must now step forward if Donald Trump’s America moves to step back. And on Sajjan’s address, pundits have emphasized the size of the government’s proposed increase in military spending: $ 14 billion over a decade, marking a 70 per cent increase over today’s spending levels (which is a substantial boost, even accounting for inflation).
These aspects of their speeches are i mportant, but not the real story. The real story here is that the government is finally abandoning Liberal delusions that Canada’s role in the world was given power merely by symbolic internationalist rhetoric, unsupported by meaningful s t rength. The ministers could have simply stood up and announced, “The Liberals have been wrong about the ways of world these last 40- some- odd years, and we plan to do better.”
They didn’t say that, of course. Rather, they acted as if renouncing the Liberals’ long- held “soft power” philosophies and replacing them with a “hard power” approach is something required by circumstances that are just now unfolding. But it isn’t. Freeland and Sajjan are absolutely right that it is important for Canada to have a strong military, to stand up for democratic values around the world, to assert its own national interests. But this has been the case for decades. And there have been people saying so — in these pages and elsewhere — for just as long. It shouldn’t have taken Canada’s reckoning with Trump or Vladimir Putin or Brexit or climate change to recognize this role, as Freeland’s speech suggested. We should have embraced a strong military because it is Canada’s duty as a country and member of the Western alliance to do so. Our governments ( and not only the Liberal ones) have simply ignored this role for too long.
Consider, for instance, one of Freeland’s more widely cited lines: “To rely solely on the U.S. security umbrella would make us a client state... Although we have an incredibly good relationship with our American friends and neighbours, such a dependence would not be in Canada’s interest. That is why doing our fair share is clearly necessary.” While pundits have pointed to these lines as a sign of Canada’s newfound recognition that it can no longer depend on the U.S ., this statement is in fact remarkable because it is effectively an admission: that the chronic underfunding of the Canadian Armed Forces ( dating back to Pierre Trudeau and with only brief exceptions since) has left Canada as exactly what Freeland says — an American client state.
And this is largely true. Canada’s military has been shrinking for decades, both in manpower and capabilities. It’s been hurt by chronic understaffing and underfunding and procurement failures. We have become ever-less present on the global stage — in times of war and peace — while becoming ever more dependent on the U.S. for continental protection. We have deployed too few troops to allied defence engagements and peacekeeping missions, too few planes to patrol our skies, and too few ships to monitor our shorelines. We are virtually defenceless in the Arctic and always have been. That has been a well- known fact for anyone who has bothered to pay attention.
Do not mistake our meaning here. We like much of what Freeland and Sajj an have said. Assuming they follow through on their commitments ( which is a considerable assumption), Canada will be the better for it. But not because we have staked out a new, bold place for ourselves in the world, but rather because we will finally be catching up to where we ought always to have been. Not because we are joining new institutions, but because we will finally be pulling our weight at the ones we’ve long been in.
In effect, the Liberals have slyly admitted that, for decades, Canada’s foreign policy has been a disappointing sham. We have talked a good talk on human rights, multilateralism, foreign aid and collective defence.
But we have failed to live up to our commitments or maintain the capabilities required to do so. If the Liberals do follow through on their plans, they won’t be bringing Canada “back.” They’ll be fulfilling the obligations our governments have for decades neglected.