Canada is a privileged country. Since the last war with its southern neighbor at the beginning of the 19e century, he lives in peace, at least in North America. He achieved his political unity in 1867 and managed to maintain it through thick and thin. This is a remarkable feat, given the turbulent and bloody history of European and Asian states during this period.
Canada’s geographic position is one of the factors explaining this success. The country benefited from a peaceful environment and drew all the advantages from it, even during the great wars of the 20th century.e century. The other factor, and not the least, is more political. Since its creation one hundred and fifty years ago, Canada has been strongly influenced in almost every aspect of its internal and external life by the United Kingdom and later by the United States. These two imperial powers created, if not imposed, the rules and standards in economic, diplomatic and military matters, and Canada adopted them, willingly and sometimes by force.
Consequently, Canada became a rich and prosperous country, well integrated into the Western system.
This beautiful medal, however, has a reverse. Canada has long evolved in the world as prescribed by British, and now American thinkers, diplomats and politicians. It helped build the post-war world order, but its contribution has diminished over time. It has too often left it up to others, mainly the Americans, to lay down the rules and simply implement them. This is at least the very stimulating thesis defended by the Canadian geopolitician Irvin Studin in a recently published book, Canada Must Think For Itself.
According to Studin, not only has Canada lost the ability to come up with and promote ideas, but it may no longer have the interest — even when faced with multiple post-pandemic crises. . The comfort of its relationship with the United States is one of the causes of this neglect. And this is accentuated by its reliance on foreign media.
Canada is drawn into a world of information and the circulation of ideas dominated by American social media. From the Prime Minister to the simple citizen, the connection with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram immerses them in debates formatted and directed by others than them. With effects on their ability to read, understand and think about the world and even the Canadian reality for themselves. It’s simple, writes Studin, “it’s the best thinkers who create the algorithms, while the weaker thinkers (whether they realize it or not) just apply the rules established by the algorithms of the countries and nations capable of thinking for themselves”.
Studin applies his analysis to many areas of the life of the country, such as demography, economy, education, national security, institutions, health. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that he wrote his book, frustrated by the inability of the country and its government to react more quickly on the strategic, medical, scientific and social levels.
The author devotes several pages to foreign policy. He is one of the rare Canadian analysts to have denounced an aspect of the new North American free trade agreement “which, after all, gives Washington a right of veto over Canada’s ability to establish advanced economic relations with countries that the United States deems unacceptable. For him, this clause reduced Canada to the rank of vassal.
Canada is often passive on the international stage. I was able to see this during my visit to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Here is one example among many others. Western countries tend to react in common to a situation. One of them takes the leadership and trains the others. This mobilization makes it possible to exert maximum pressure and proves to be a good diplomatic tool.
Unfortunately, I noticed that Canada was rarely the leader and waited to know the position of the United States or the Europeans before joining. To believe that he was incapable of defining a position and convincing others to share it. Clearly, “Canada is not a country of thinkers who set out the terms of its relations with the world,” to quote one of Studin’s conclusions.
The question that must then be asked is: “Is Canada in a position to think for itself?” Being a country that counts, able to assert its interests and shape the world to come, is far from being improvised. It takes a population and elites determined to break out of the current mold and collectively become a “country that sets the rules”. Studin invites Canada to reclaim the economic, geographic, diplomatic and media means to do so. It must establish its own terms of engagement and stop always looking to Washington, London and Paris to find out which direction to take.