The Hill Times - December 15, 2008
By Colin Kenny
Canadians are generally not confrontationists, at least off the ice. When it comes to international affairs, I suspect that the majority of us would prefer our country to confine itself to tugging at the sleeves of global troublemakers, whispering thoughtful ideas in their ears in an effort to convince them to settle their disputes peacefully.
We like peace and peacekeepers. We don’t like wars or people who pick fights. That’s one reason Barack Obama is so popular with Canadians. We’re pretty sure he won’t do anything anywhere near as stupid as George W. Bush did, marching off to Iraq to confront Saddam Hussein and what turned out to be his pitiful weapons of self-destruction.
Even if Obama is unlikely to do anything as foolish as an Iraq attack, he is neither a saint nor a pacifist. And that’s a good thing. Saints and pacifists too often encourage bad people to take advantage of their gentle natures, and there are a lot of bad people out there.
Like every president before him, Obama is going to confront some of these people. He has already talked about being more aggressive in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan.
We have to hope that Obama gets it right, because there has been no shortage of American presidents who have either confronted the wrong people or confronted them in the wrong way. Iraq and Vietnam come most quickly to mind. But the fact remains that any nation that has a stake in international stability cannot afford to sit back when that stability is threatened – least of all the United States, the lead dog on the West’s sleigh.
Canada is never going to be anyone’s lead dog, and that’s just fine. But in world affairs, Canada cannot afford to be a lap dog – cozy, lazy and dependent. If we value our lives, our sovereignty or our interests, we’re going to have to be working mutts on the international scene. This means combining diplomacy, foreign aid and our military where they can do us – and others – the most good.
The good we do abroad will come back to us at home, both in terms of our own physical protection and in terms of creating economic opportunities. Unstable worlds block economic opportunities, particularly for countries that depend on trade, like Canada.
We can’t protect ourselves and our sovereignty, and advance our interests, through the use of diplomacy alone. We need to pay our way through the use our armed forces, and we need to pay our way through the use of development assistance. “Soft power” is a pleasant concept, but nobody listens to countries that don’t pay their way, no matter how good their ideas.
The world didn’t listen to Lester B. Pearson during the Suez Crisis simply because he had good ideas. The world is full of thinkers, but doers are too often in short supply. Mike Pearson ran Canada when it had a navy, army and air force befitting a helpful middle power. Mike Pearson was also one of the pioneers in encouraging world leaders to target their aid budgets at 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product or higher.
Many countries of Canada’s size and/or interests now approach or exceed that percentage – countries like Norway at.95 percent, and the Netherlands at.81 percent. Not Canada. We spent a paltry .28 percent of GDP on aid in 2006-2007, and this percentage continues to shrivel at an alarming rate.
Many countries of Canada’s size and/or interests also fund their militaries at a level at which they can be helpful when they are needed. Countries like the United Kingdom and Australia, which spent 2.3 percent and 2.0 per cent respectively on defence in 2007. Not Canada. We spent 1.2 percent of GDP on defence over the same period, ranking us 20th out of 25 NATO countries. Canadian politicians pretend to be doers, but we scrimp on the tools our country needs to help improve the world.
If Canadians want Barak Obama to play lead dog in defending the West’s interests in an effective and thoughtful way – and if we also want him to pay attention to Canada’s political and economic needs – we must put better tools in place to respond whenever it is in our interests. We may not always choose to respond as he wishes, but unless we have the capacity to mobilize when the chips are down, he’s going to ignore us. And rightfully so.
It’s easy to ignore a country that can only put 1,000 combat troops in the field at any given time. It’s easy to ignore a country with an aid budget that has all but evaporated. It’s easy to ignore a country whose diplomatic corps that is underfunded and understaffed.
Now is a critical time. Things could get worse instead of better, because there is going to be pressure on the Canadian government to reduce spending on both aid and defence as it looks for ways to cut costs so it can invest in the faltering Canadian economy.
That would be a very misguided move. If we want the new American president to be thoughtful, we’ve got to be thoughtful with him – thoughtful about having the tools in place to work with him when is pursuing a mission that is in Canada’s interests.
The federal government needs to invest in Canada’s military, both to create jobs at home (the Canadian Forces are 20,000 personnel understaffed) but also to advance our interests in the United States and the rest of the world.
The Great Depression lingered on far into the 1930s because far too many countries turned inward, erecting barriers to the outside world. Only later did they all realize that it would have been far better to turn outward, and join hands to deal with the instability that was crippling every nation. We can’t afford to make the same mistake again.
Colin Kenny was Chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in the last Parliament. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca