Harper’s world view
I‘In such a world, strength is not an option; it is a vital necessity. Moral ambiguity, moral equivalence are not options, they are dangerous illusions.’
Prime Minister
f Canadians wish to understand foreign policy under Stephen Harper, they might go back to April 2006 and his first address to Parliament as prime minister.
He set the tone by speaking about the significance of being a constitutional monarchy, and referring (correctly) to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as this country’s “head of state.” But then Harper said something even more significant, that hinted at a radical shift in Canada’s conduct on the international stage.
“( W)e all understand that Canada is not some island on which we can live in splendid and peaceful isolation. This was the hard lesson that this country learned in two world wars — we learned it before the United States — and it was driven home to us again with great force on 9/11.”
While that was an acknowledgment that Canada must engage on the world stage, it was not an endorsement of multilateralism.
In those words we have the essence of Canadian foreign policy on Harper’s watch, and it has meant a turn from the policies that held sway under Harper’s predecessors going back to former prime minister Lester Pearson in the early 1960s. Many regard the Pearson era — sometimes with some oversimplification — as a golden age of diplomacy, with its notions of multilateralism, soft power campaigns, support for the United Nations, peacekeeping, and promotion of Canada as a neutral honest broker.
STEPHEN HARPER
Harper’s maiden speech effectively announced the abandonment of the Pearsonian legacy. No surprise, critics have denounced the Tories ever since, condemning everything from government’s scuppering of Canada’s Kyoto accord commitments and their failure to win a seat on the UN Security Council to Harper’s robust support for Israel. Harper’s approach to the world, the critics charge, is “not Canadian.”
It is certainly true that the Conservatives are not afraid to choose sides on a number of questions, and that they have simply flubbed a few international files. But Harper is not without foreign policy fans. They argue that, unlike the Liberals, the Tories more closely match rhetoric and action, and what we have now is a necessary pragmatism — think of the focus on international trade, on the resource sector and energy deals — that puts Canada’s interests first even at the risk of offending others.
This recast of the foreign policy file was evident in Harper’s 2006 speech to the United Nations when he questioned the relevance of the world body. More recently, Canadian diplomats helped convince the European Union to outlaw the military wing of Hezbollah. It may be an ineffectual gesture, but it is indicative of Harper’s no-more-nice-nation posture.
All of this was embedded in Harper’s 2006 speech to the House of Commons, and subsequent statements have only reinforced Harper’s “Canada first” approach to foreign relations. “We are living in a world in which, after decades of stable, sometimes stagnant international relationships, change is the new constant,” he said in 2011. “In such a world, strength is not an option; it is a vital necessity. Moral ambiguity, moral equivalence are not options, they are dangerous illusions. We also have a purpose — and that purpose is no longer just to go along and get along with everyone else’s agenda. It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations.”
Behind this is a world view decidedly contrary to that of his predecessors. Harper looks at the world and sees the spread of disorder, a threat that requires taking a principled stand.
Admittedly, Harper has often slipped on these principles — cozying up to China’s dictators for economic reasons after years of denouncing them for moral reasons, for example — but in his view the world of Pearson and his (mostly) Liberal successors no longer exists. The stability of the Cold War world divided into ideological camps has given way to an unstable world of fundamentalist terrorism and the threat of nuclear proliferation.
In such a world, many Conservatives feel Canada doesn’t have the luxury of a foreign policy that looks mainly to a dysfunctional United Nations, or complete reliance on the military protection of the United States.
Not surprisingly, many regret the loss of the Pearsonian approach to world affairs, seeing it as harmful to Canada’s international reputation.
Whether that is a premature judgment remains to be seen, but any appraisal of the Harper’s government’s foreign policies must begin with awareness of the world view informing them.