Canadian Election Follow Up: Afghanistan

As mentioned in the open thread on issues that should be discussed if a federal election were to be called in the foreseeable future, one issue that is an obvious trigger is Canada’s role in Afghanistan. In fleshing this issue out  a bit, I responded to commenter Katherine’s suggestions,

[F]oreign policy: particularly what to do in Afghanistan, how we can influence US strategy there and whether we should leave if strategy doesn’t improve (poppy eradication, for example), the function and usefulness of peacekeeping and Canada’s role in it, increases to foreign aid (0.7% of GDP), and opposition to nations and international organizations trying to dictate economic policy to the Third World.

I offered,

What about a foreign policy discussion on reviving Canada’s role as an honest go-to global leader in terms of peace keeping rather than an arm of US foreign policy? Think Harper’d dig that one?

Johnathan from Canned Good and Ammunition and The Politic countered,

Scott, I’d rather this wasn’t such a binary formulation. I, generally, support a muscular, interventionist, liberal foreign policy. Working for the U.S. doesn’t fall under that (though working with the U.S. might), but the idea of simply being peacekeepers as an homage to an old “Canadian Heritage Moment” vignette isn’t, necessarily, better.

I think Johnathan’s resistance to my binary formulation is fair. More than anything I was trying to narrow and frame the options for debate presented by Katherine and get a little something going in terms of debate.

I do; however, think that there is a real discussion to be had about the relationship between Canadian foreign policy and US foreign policy and that we can’t just shrug the perception that there is a sense in which Harper has become beholden to decisions in Washington as rhetoric or too binary.

As indicated by a poll conducted by Strategic Counsel and reported on by the Globe and Mail indicated, Canadians as a whole feel pretty strongly about this issue,

The Canadian public’s alienation from Washington came out when pollsters asked what they thought was the biggest influence on Canadian foreign policy. The largest number, 25 per cent, said it was Canada’s relationship with Washington. But when asked what should be the biggest influence, just 5 per cent said the U.S. relationship.

Canadians seem to feel that Ottawa is far too beholden to Washington, something that Mr. Harper’s Conservative government will have to remember as it tries to repair relations strained under the previous Liberal government.

In the poll, 39 per cent said that Canadian foreign policy was less independent than it was 50 years ago, in Mr. Pearson’s day, while 25 per cent said it was more independent and 27 per cent said it was about the same.

Peter Donolo, a Strategic Counsel partner and onetime spokesman for the government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, said it would be wrong to say the poll reflected “rabid or virulent anti-Americanism.”

“I think it’s fairer to say there’s a deep suspicion of U.S. foreign policy currently and a sense that Canada is tracking too closely to it.”

So it’s not just snark on my part to say that a real and substantial debate about foreign policy needs to incorporate an element about how one might forumlate a Canadian policy moving forward that garners trust from Canadians about its independence.

Further, to Jon’s point about my formulation about peacekeeping being a throw back to a Heritage Canada vingette I would offer that there are real reasons why I placed my question in that context.  If one looks at the numbers for the predominant military operation in which Canada has been engaged for the past seven years, Afghanistan, there is a drooping support (or burgeoning opposition, if you’d prefer) for what, I think it is fair to say, is the “muscular, liberal interventionism” to which Johnthan indicates he prescribes.

Those numbers are relatively steady from a year ago, when public support was described as being at its “lowest ever”, and one can see that this trend has been tracking pretty steadily both in terms of articulated “support” and “opposition”  since Canada’s decision to become involved,

My point in all of this is that there isn’t the kind of public environment to articulate a discussion on foreign policy in the terms that Johnathan seems insistent on doing. The result one is likely to see is a fairly strong reaction that ultimately, I would offer, ends the debate at something short of a meaningful conclusion.

If, then, we are to have any sort of productive discussion about Canadian foreign policy over the coming years, assuming, as it seems relatively safe to do, that support for any kind of “muscular interventionism” continues to fall, then we are going to need to find a different, more palatable means of articulating what we’re talking about. Unless, of course, what we’re talking about is shift back to isolationism.

Insofar as I remain unconvinced about the ultimate benefits of an isolationist stance (though, I’m not wholly convinced that such a move would be a bad thing for Americans to consider — but that’s y’alls discussion to have), I find myself, therefore, compelled to look at ways of having the discussion that are likely to produce the greatest degree of constructive outcome.

Hence my formulation.

Look, we’re going to have this discussion the next time we have an election, about that I am almost 100% confident. So the question with which I think we need to grapple is not whether we have the discussion, but rather how we have the conversation.

To my mind, given our sense of being beholden and largely bereft of real national leadership, an avenue that both roots us in a past of which we are proud (a global role as peacekeepers) and provides a space for a discussion about a distinctive and independent future is one possible option that certainly contains enough of a break within its parameters such that there is a potential for a meaningful outcome, if not, to borrow from John McLaughlin, a “metaphysical certainty”.

Now, North may well be correct when he says,

Canadians would love to have that prestige again. But they don’t want to pay for it.

But what is that Einstein quote about insanity? Right…

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Canadian foreign policy, Canadian involvement, federal election, opposition, peacekeeping, support