Matt Gurney: Canada doesn't lead

In almost every field of geopolitical endeavour, Canada has, at most, aspired to be a loyal and reliable mid-ranked contributor ... at best.

By: Matt Gurney

On “Liberation Day” last week, when U.S. President Donald Trump gifted the world his so-called reciprocal tariffs, Liberal leader Mark Carney made a damned interesting statement. I agreed with the tone and the substance. It’s the practicality of it where we start running into problems. And maybe even the psychology of it, too, to whatever extent a nation can have a psychology.

First, let’s look at what the Liberal leader said, or you can hear it directly at the video below:

Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy and to protect our sovereignty. Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values. We believe in international cooperation. We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services and ideas. And if the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will.

Oh, we will, eh?

Don’t get me wrong, I like the sound of it. He’s certainly manifesting that elbows-up spirit that seems to be so impressing Canadians.

But, like — Carney knows which country he’s in, right? Canada? The one full of Canadians? Because as I heard him say what Canada would do in response to the accelerating American withdrawal from global affairs, I couldn’t help but note that there is a problem here.

Canada isn’t a leader. Canada doesn’t lead.

Even as I write this, I know it’s going to be a fraught statement. Canadian patriotism is a bit supercharged right now. It’s nice to see. But a lot of stupidity gets overlooked — or even caused — by patriotic outbursts. Internal dissent becomes a lot less popular when everybody is sewing the Maple Leaf onto their backpack. So I want to make my point respectfully and politely, largely to spare myself the agony of wading through idiotic replies for a few days. So here goes: many Canadians do indeed lead in their fields, and there is nothing inherent about Canada that makes us incapable of exercising leadership. If Mark Carney remains prime minister — or if someone with similar ambitions should replace him and make a point of pursuing a policy of broad-based Canadian global leadership — I don’t write that off as a doomed proposition.

There is more that we could choose to do. There are practical constraints that would bind us, and we’ll talk about those in a minute, but just to get into the spirit of the moment: sure. We could choose to exercise global leadership.

But we would first have to start with the recognition that it has been generations since we have actually tried to do that. This is not a moral judgment on Canada or Canadians. It is simply a recognition of the historical record. This country has not pursued a national policy — or even a series of smaller policies that take on a greater form in the aggregate — that sought to establish this country as a leader in the world.

If we’re being honest, we’ve typically pursued almost the opposite policy, and deliberately. I’m not saying we’re slavish followers. But this is a country that for generations has been quite comfortable thinking of itself as an overachieving middle power, nestled comfortably in a supporting role for allied countries that do seek to lead. Usually the Americans. Maybe sometimes the British or French. Or something like the UN or NATO. We’ve never claimed to land the hardest punches, or tried to. We’d settle for punching above our weight. We haven’t tried to conquer or command or even compel. In the words of a member of the incumbent government, our aspiration largely maxed out at wishing to convene.

These were not necessarily the wrong choices. I’m not trying to crucify everyone who’s had a hand in shaping our foreign policies going back decades. A lot of the choices we made were at the very least defensible in the time in which they were made.

But let’s be honest with ourselves about what the choices were., and what our priorities were. Not leadership. In almost every field of geopolitical endeavour, Canada has, at most, aspired to be a loyal and reliable mid-ranked contributor. And even that has largely proven aspirational. We’ve mostly just wanted to show up and be seen. To the extent we would lead, we’d do it on a regular schedule. We’d host a conference or summit. We’d apply for a temporary UN Security Council seat (and lose). We’d take on the rotating leadership of the G7. That was about it.

And our lack of interest in leadership isn’t some shameful, dirty secret. We haven’t come right out and fessed up, but we didn’t really hide it, either. It should hardly be necessary for readers of The Line to have it explained to them once more that in the most obvious field of geopolitical competition — hard military power — Canada has chosen not to pursue leadership. And putting it that way is almost comically charitable. Canadian policy for the last several generations, with a temporary and only partial exception in Afghanistan, has been to support allied coalitions. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not impugning anyone’s service. But even where we might’ve exercised a degree of tactical control or local leadership — as we did in Kandahar and are doing in Latvia today — it’s only been in the framework of being a cooperative power under a larger overall allied command.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But let’s be clear and honest about what that was.

Diplomatically, Canada has generally liked to show up at the big international fora. We’d never miss a “family photo” — well, almost never — but that was about the extent of our interest. Talk to anyone with any insight into the field of diplomacy — Canadian or otherwise — and you’ll find out pretty quickly that everyone is more or less on the same page about what Canada is really doing. In recent decades, we’ve cut our actual foreign service corps to the bone. Again, this isn’t a secret. We’ve concluded this for ourselves already — we have slashed budgets, under-recruited diplomatic staff, and shuttered and consolidated diplomatic missions abroad.

We’ve pursued a policy of treating international diplomacy — summits and conferences and what have you — as opportunities to gather clips to be pumped out on social media to specific targeted voter groups in Canada. We have not sought to exercise any real leadership at international summits or events. We have not spearheaded any large, major initiatives. We have, again, at best, settled for being a contributor. And often a fairly reluctant one. More than one foreign diplomat from friendly countries has explained to me — probably with more politeness than I, the default representative of Canada during those chats, deserved — that our allies have gotten the message. We aren’t interested in doing big things abroad; most of our foreign affairs resources are geared to sustaining (at a fairly low level) the usual array of necessary consular services and, beyond that, supporting domestic political goals at home.

It’s not that Canadian soft power is nonexistent. We still have some stored-up goodwill and reasonable direct personal ties with many allied officials. But leadership? No. Not for decades. It’s not that we can’t. We just chose to stop trying.

The most interesting field of international relations, though, and the most germane to what Carney said on Liberation Day, is in the field of trade. Canada definitely likes trade. I’ll even give some credit here to both Liberals and Conservatives. It has been broadly understood that Canada thrives when we have access to markets all over the world. The pursuit of expanded trading relationships has been a bipartisan priority for Liberals and Conservatives alike … so long as it doesn’t cost us anything on the domestic political front.

And yes, I’m talking about dairy. Some other things, too. But mostly the milk and eggs.

Seriously. Scroll up a bit. Look at that big quote I dropped in at the top from Carney. Watch the CTV feed again. Canada is going to pursue a role of leadership in defending liberalized free trade?

Really? Forgive me for squinting. I’m struggling with my middle-aged eyes to find the tiny text appended to Carney’s pledge that notes that “conditions apply.” Because that very same Mark Carney has already gone out of his way to say that protecting Canada’s supply-managed dairy and egg producers is an absolute, unbendable priority for him and his party.

So yes. Let’s all pledge ourselves to a new era of Canadian leadership in defence of free trade and unfettered market access, right up until the moment some weirdo foreigner gets it into their pathetic little brain that they should be allowed to sell me a stick of butter. Because that ain’t on, friends. Let’s get our elbows up, and bury them deep into this wheel of filthy xenocheddar.

Sorry, Canadian farmers. I know how pissed off you get when we talk about this. And I’m sure you’re great people. But Canada is not exercising any form of leadership in the field of expanding global free trade. Canada is, in fact, a laggard in the field of global free trade — we’re one of the more stubbornly protectionist countries left.

We’re definitely better than the Americans are right now. That ain’t saying much, is it? Though, then again, come to think of it, maybe one of the reasons we never try too hard to lead is because we’re too focused on just keeping up, and ideally staying slightly ahead of, the Americans on some chosen metric or another. That’s been enough for us for … well, my entire life?

But that’s another column. Let’s veer back to this one: Canada is a rich country that could, if it chose, lead a lot more than it does. We could choose to invest the money, the people, and the political capital — abroad and domestically — to truly take the reins in some fields. I’ll forgive Carney a bit of rhetorical excess, and I’ll assume he understands that we simply don’t have the scale to ever really replace the United States as a leader in the fields of global security and economic cooperation. There is simply no way a country one-eight the size of the United States in terms of population, and even less in terms of economic output, can truly step up to fill a void left by an increasingly isolated America.

But sure. We could do more. And Carney, if returned to office as prime minister, may well decide to spend his time trying to do more. If so, I say: good for him. Show me a plan. If it makes any sense, I’ll support it, publicly.

But as is so often the case, the first step here is going to be admitting we have a problem. If Canada wants to lead, we’re going to have to actually decide to do it. And that’s going to mean overcoming decades — if not generations — of inertia. Canada could have pursued a national policy of leadership, either broadly or in niche fields, but instead, we chose plodding along as an increasingly cheapskate deadbeat in the middle of a big group of happy allies.

Canadian leadership is possible. Leadership is good. But such leadership would mark one hell of a change. And we should say that. We should wonder why that is. And then we should truly assess whether or not any politician out there really means it when they say that Canada is ready to lead.

Because if we are, it must have happened very recently. And you’ll forgive me for noting that I’ve yet to see the signs of this much beyond our shifting our national affection away from Wayne Gretzky and over to Mike Myers.

---

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work, have already subscribed, and still worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today.

---

The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com