When Stephen Harper was first elected he assured Canadians that his Conservative government would walk tall in the world.
“We are determined to demonstrate Canada’s leadership on the world stage,” he told Parliament in 2006. “To regain the trust of our allies, and to demonstrate that we will pull our weight.” And he paid special tribute to our military, diplomats and aid workers.
They were fine sentiments. But during a decade in power, the Harper government hasn’t begun to live up to them. Progressively, Canada has shrunk in stature.
That’s something that ought to be the focus of Monday’s leaders’ debate on foreign policy. It’s a chance for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and New Democrat Tom Mulcair to spell out clearly where they stand on the key issues.
Granted, the Conservatives eagerly took ownership of the Liberal commitment to send a robust fighting force to Afghanistan to support democracy and fight terror. Indeed, they have made “fighting terror” a hallmark of their foreign policy. The Tories were also quick to heed American calls for support in Libya and latterly in Iraq and Syria. They were generous toward Haiti after its 2010 earthquake. And they have invested in mother-and-child health care in poor countries.
But at root, Harper sees the world through a hawkish, neo-conservative prism, and makes policy to please his base or to woo select constituencies.
Canada has retreated from the United Nations, from peacekeeping and from international engagement generally on Harper’s watch. Relations with the United States have cooled over trade irritants and pipelines. We have forfeited any credibility as a voice of moderation in the Middle East, where the greatest threats to our security arise. And while vowing to sharply cut carbon emissions that threaten the planet, we haven’t.
At its moral worst, the Harper government had to be shamed by the iconic image of a drowned Syrian boy into boosting aid for refugees.
And despite his rhetoric Harper has presided over an era of relative decline in spending on our military, diplomatic outreach and foreign aid.
The Economist magazine recently sneered that Canada today is “Strong, proud and free-riding.” That wasn’t far wrong. The Harper legacy deserves tough scrutiny during Monday’s debate.
Five big foreign-policy issues loom for Canada’s policy-makers, as the nation looks to mark 150 years of Confederation in 2017.
1. The Canada-U.S. relationship has been drifting, despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s popularity here. On vital issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to trade irritants and border thickening, neither the White House nor Congress is giving us the hearing we deserve as a close ally and trading partner.
2. At the United Nations, Canada has been almost invisible on Harper’s inward-looking watch. We failed in our bid for a Security Council seat, partly due to our neglect of China, support for Israel’s right-wing government, renunciation of Kyoto climate commitments, aid cuts, and our withdrawal from peacekeeping.
3. Canada’s military needs rebuilding. The defence budget has shrunk by 16 per cent on Harper’s watch, to just 0.98 per cent of gross domestic product, as the government moved to erase the deficit. It is barely half of what it was in 1988, under Brian Mulroney, as the Cold War was winding down. The Conservatives have starved the military to rein in the federal deficit. They have also bungled the F-35 fighter purchase, naval shipbuilding and other vital procurement.
4. Our foreign aid needs rethinking. Never very generous, it has slipped badly, by 18 per cent, under Harper, to 0.23 per cent of GDP. Like defence, it is now half what it was in the Mulroney years. And it is being distorted to promote Canada’s trade agenda rather than helping the very poorest.
5. On climate change, Canada has reaped nothing but international contempt on Harper’s watch, for declaring carbon taxes as a “job killer,” for walking away from our modest commitments and for cheerleading other foot-draggers. Harper promises to cut greenhouse emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, but has no credible plan to get us there. What scant progress we have made is due largely to provincial efforts.
While Canadian elections aren’t fought and won on foreign policy, this particular election offers the prospect of regaining some of the stature Canada has lost in the past decade. So far the main opposition leaders have been content to nibble at the margins. Trudeau has pledged to kill the F-35 program to fund the navy, for example, and Mulcair would step up aid. Both would get out of the Iraq/Syria fight, and bring in more refugees. But neither has fully addressed the broader picture. Now is their chance. Voters should know where they stand on all the key issues:
Finally, on climate change, what should Canada’s emission-cutting targets be? More than Harper’s latest pledge? And how aggressively are the leaders prepared to price carbon to get us from here to there? $30 a metric tonne, which pushes up gasoline and natural gas prices up by 6 or 7 cents a litre or cubic metre? $50? $100?
Big choices. Big ticket prices. Big consequences. Let’s hear more. And let’s revisit the activism Harper promised, but failed to deliver.
