THE COWBOY WAY
OR
Canadian Foreign Policy under a Majority
Conservative Government
A McLEOD GROUP FOREIGN POLICY PERSPECTIVE
January 31, 2012

When the Conservatives formed a minority government in 2006, they were neither experienced nor interested in foreign policy, and there were no international policy issues among their five stated priorities. However international issues have a way of intruding on political agendas—the war in Afghanistan, international emergencies, visits by heads of state: all demand response. In October 2010, Canada was defeated in its bid for a Security Council seat for the first time since the creation of the UN. Although the Conservatives first blamed then Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for speaking publicly against it and then maintained that it was a result of their own principled positions, the failure generated substantial media and public debate about Canada’s international role under the Conservatives. Issues such as Canada’s unquestioning support for Israel, the cutting of CIDA programs to Africa, Canada’s lack of support for UN institutions, and its obstructionist role in climate change negotiations were all given as possible contributors to the defeat.

In the May 2011 election, a 40% popular vote for the Conservatives gave Mr. Harper a majority government. Some thought he would simply extend the world view and approaches of the previous minority. Others thought that the longed-for majority would allow him to free foreign policy from its domestic political ties and focus more on the Canadian values of which he so often speaks.

To help explain Canadian foreign policy under the Conservative majority, we offer an analogy. In the first of 66 films, Hopalong Cassidy got his nickname after being shot in the foot. This paper explores how Canadian foreign policy has hopped along, caught in a Wild West mindset and suffering from a series of self-inflicted shots to the foot since the failed bid for a Security Council seat and the election of May 2011.

A Harper Doctrine?
Since the 2011 election, Mr. Harper has been more forthcoming than before about how he sees Canada’s role in the world. In a July 2011 interview with Maclean’s, he discussed his changing views on foreign policy:

I’ll just say this: since coming to office—in fact since becoming prime minister—the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations—I don’t even know what my expectations were—is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but in fact that it’s become almost everything.

We think it’s pretty important that our long-run interests are tied somewhat to our trade, but that they’re more fundamentally tied to the kind of values we have in the world: freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law.

We’re trying to make our foreign aid more effective. We don’t fund talk shops anymore, we fund aid that actually makes a difference.

I’m not dismissing peacekeeping, and I’m not dismissing foreign aid—they’re all important things that we need to do, and in some cases do better—but the real defining moments for the country and for the world are those big conflicts where everything’s at stake and where you take a side and show you can contribute to the right side.

The interviewer asked what those big conflicts are, and Mr. Harper answered:

The most obvious is terrorism, Islamic extremist terrorism. We know that’s a big one globally. We also know, though, the world is becoming more complex, and the ability of our most important allies, and most importantly the United States, to single-handedly shape outcomes and protect our interests, has been diminishing, and so I’m saying we have to be prepared to contribute more, and that is what this government’s been doing.

In a more recent interview he identified the major threat as “Islamicism”. And in his speech to the Conservative convention in June he said,

Now, we know where our interests lie, and who our friends are. And we take strong, principled positions in our dealings with other nations whether popular or not … and that is what the world can count on from Canada.

After this speech, there was a brief media flurry about a new “Harper Doctrine” in foreign affairs. This has now been toned down to refer to a more “muscular” foreign policy, one which sees a strengthened military taking on a more active role. At the ceremony to commemorate Canada’s participation in the Libya mission, Mr. Harper managed to combine high parliamentary rhetoric and street slang in the same sentence: “We believe that in a world where people look for hope and cry out for freedom, those who talk the talk of human rights must from time to time be prepared to likewise walk the walk.” The fact that there is now “new hope” in Libya, Mr. Harper declared, “gives some proof to the old saying, ‘A handful of soldiers is better than a mouthful of arguments.’” Churchill, no slouch at soldiering, had a different view: “It is better to jaw-jaw than war-war.”

espoused by dozens of other countries): “democracy, human rights, gender equality, religious freedoms etc.” The etcetera is where things tend to go wrong. The devil is always in the detail.

Daryl Copeland, a former Canadian diplomat, argues that under the Conservatives Canada has seen a retreat from internationalism:

Regardless of which party formed the government, this country actively engaged with other peoples and states in the in the pursuit of collaborative solutions to the world’s major problems and challenges.

The Conservatives have repudiated the past and embraced a more hard power oriented and militarized approach to international affairs which features a demonstrated preference for fighting over talking. Adulation for the armed forces, and the celebration of all things martial have reached unprecedented heights.

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