Canada and the World at Risk: Depression, War, and Isolationism for the 21st Century?

• Published in: International journal (Toronto) 1997-03, Vol.52 (1), p.1-24
• Main Author: Ross, Douglas Alan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Defense; International relations; International security
• ISSN: 0020-7020; 2052-465X
• DOI: 10.1177/002070209705200101

Canada's statistical profile in the post -- Cold War era is in some important respects coming to resemble the summary depictions of life in the dirty 'thirties. Never in the post -- World War II era have there been so many Canadians out of work or 'casualized' or 'discouraged.' Almost five million Canadians, including nearly one-fifth of Canadian children, live below the poverty line. At no time since World War II has income polarization been as severe between top and bottom wage earners. Never before has the blinkered, stunted, soulless ideology of American neoconservatism so dominated the Canadian political landscape, bringing with it such extraordinary levels of governmental irresponsibility and public cynicism. That the damage inflicted upon American society is equally if not more grave is no cause for consolation or resignation: it merely adds to the danger of North American disengagement from global security management in years to come. For Canada's foreign and defence policies, the state of affairs is even worse than the condition of the national economy. Not since the 1930s has Canada's international presence seemed so wan, so self-enfeebled, so marginal. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATTA) under implementation, foreign policy has been reduced to Team Canada trade missions to communist and ethnically repressive states (China and Indonesia) and fervent, well-intentioned but largely irrelevant speeches on disarmament and peacekeeping at a debt-ridden, paralyzed, and imploding United Nations. Thanks to the triumph of quasi-pacifist doctrine of the style found in Canada 21,(f.1) the future of the Canadian armed forces is unusually bleak. The foundations of Canada's international security policy have been eroded by profoundly unwise decisions over the past three years to 'restructure' the military for what politicians and policy-makers in Ottawa foolishly believe will be a comparatively benign post-Cold War era. The following developments in particular have done grave damage to Canadian power, position, and influence over the 'high' political issues on the global agenda: 1 The elimination of Canada's armoured firepower despite the offer of hundreds of modern American main battle tanks at little more than the cost of shipment in 1991-2. Modern tanks are essential protection for Canadian peacekeepers who may be sent into high-risk 'peacekeeping' environments and i