Blog of John E. Trent

John E. Trent

Letter to International Herald Tribune, 24 March 2009

Dear Editors,

When will Americans recognize that sometimes others can have as good or better ideas than them? Chancellor Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Balkenende of the Netherlands propose that their must be new international financial institutions to regulate financial markets (March 21). David Brooks rejects the European proposals as “perverse cosmic myopia”.

For Brooks, only American proposals for short term stimulus, strengthening the IMF and preserving open trade are worthwhile.

Those of us who have been studying international reform during the past decade know where Mr. Brooks is coming from. It is the same old mantra of don’t touch the sacrosanct American sovereignty, constitution and freedom of action. Don’t talk about institutional reform.

The world has tried to ignore the need for basic reform during the past two decades of financial crises. But, Europeans have learnt from experience that only long term improvements in sovereignty and institutional development can allow them to achieve their common economic and social aims.

Let us hope that Obama, Geithner and Summers will be open to the European ideas by recalling that Americans originally invented the division of sovereignty in federalism to create a higher level of institutional governance to oversee economic development for all.

John Trent, Chelsea, Que., Canada.

John E. Trent

Letter to the Ottawa Citizen, 05-02-09

The decision of the National Battlegrounds Commission for a full-scale re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham to commemorate the 250th anniversary of this event ranks among the most crassly stupid ideas I have heard.

I doubt that sensible people would welcome a recommendation by historians, for example, that they re-enact the sacking of Washington and burning of the White House by the British and the retaliatory burning of “Muddy York” (Toronto) by the Americans in the War of 1812. There are hundreds of examples of historical events that it is plain silly or even dangerous to commemorate.

Maybe the driving force behind the stupidity is money. The Mayor of Quebec has said he would not miss the event for anything. One wonders whether this is because the American Bus Association has named it one of the hundred great events of the year?

Josée Verner, the federal minister responsible for this event, defended the federal government against the nationalist villains who are attacking the project. She said it is not meant to be a political or festive event.

Ms. Verner has stated that anyone who is offended by this summer’s re-enactment of the historic 1759 battle in Quebec City can simply stay home.

The point is that the Battlefield Commission is insulting all the people who have worked so hard in recent decades to develop a fruitful dialogue between French and English-speaking Canadians.

It denigrates attempts to build Canada as a model bilingual, multicultural society. It is a slap in the face to those who think the role of the federal government is to build harmonious relations between the various parts of the country, not to divide them.

The re-enacting of the battle is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The proof of the pudding is that the Quebec nationalists are already up in arms because of this insulting reminder, whereas they have been relatively quiet in recent years.

Some argue that they re-enact old battles in countries as diverse as the U.S., Great Britain and Spain. Once again, the point is that these historic battles are not between two ethnic groups still trying to accommodate each other in the same society.

As my daughter, Debbie, says so wisely, “In a society that is still fragile, you do not go about trying to provoke people. You don’t want to continually remind people of winners and losers.”

John Trent, Chelsea, Quebec Retired professor of political science, University of Ottawa

John E. Trent

Introduction: To understand Canada it is necessary to understand things are not always what they seem – for better and worse. Canada has been called the “Peaceable Kingdom”. It is, but underneath there is a deeper reality. Canadian society is a seething cauldron of contending forces, now heated up by influences of globalization, which continually threaten to spill over into open conflict. This reality has led to another: the necessity of learning the art and science of managing the balancing act that is Canadian governance. This balancing act requires teaching our citizens a certain degree of compromise and of tolerance for diversity so that we can keep the contending forces below the boiling point. One of the elements of this difficult and fragile balance is the practice and policy of bilingualism which, like the other pieces of the puzzle is always a work in progress.

The federal government of Canada recognizes two official languages in its laws, constitution and policies. Although it is only a federal and New Brunswick policy, considerable strides have also been made in other provinces. In 1951 only 12 % of Canadians said they were bilingual. By 2001, 18% of Canadians said they were bilingual for a total of 5 million people. Of these bilingual Canadians, 44% were Francophone and 9% Anglophone. As of the 2001 census, there were 1.3 million English mother tongue Canadians outside Quebec who claimed to be bilingual. In Quebec, the number of bilinguals had increased from I million in 1951 to 3 million in 2001 (41%), of whom 67% of Anglophones profess to be bilingual and 37% of Francophones. New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province saw its number of bilinguals go from 100,000 (19%) in 1951 to 250,000 (34%) in 2001. Here we will use the terms bilingual and bilingual regime as a short hand to refer to the political institutionalization of French and English – without at all assuming that all the population itself does or is intended to speak both languages.

How is bilingualism doing in Canada? At present, 72 percent of Canadians are favourable to the French-English bilingualism of federal institutions. This is a level of support without precedent since the adoption of the Official Languages Act in 1969. Among the young, the figure is 80 percent.

By way of comparison, only 56 percent of the population was favourable to bilingualism in 2003 according to the continuing polling done for the Commission of Official Languages by Decima Research (latest poll February 2006). A majority of Canadians in all provinces now support official bilingualism ranging from a high of 91 percent in Quebec and 77 percent in the Atlantic region to 58 percent in Alberta. Across Canada, 90 percent of Francophones like bilingualism while support comes from 65 percent of Anglophones. Astonishingly, 70 percent of people questioned across the country said they were also favourable to bilingualism in their provincial institutions but only New Brunswick has official bilingualism. So, on the whole and for now we can say the language question has settled down in Canada and according to an amazing 84 percent of respondents bilingualism has become one of our most enriching assets and even a factor of success for Canadians at home (84%) and in the world (89%).

Looking at several early antecedents of bilingualism in Canada teaches us not only its historical roots but some lessons that still apply. We then turn briefly to some of the key developments over time of linguistic relations between the country’s English and French-speaking populations and the high and low points in building a bilingual political regime. So that we do not imagine that linguistic policies alone do a bilingual country make, we then consider some of the conundrums that continue to challenge bilingualism in Canada and a few proposals for improving its potential. These steps will allow us to conclude with some context and explanation for Canada’s bilingualism by seeing how it fits in with the general Canadian identity in the 21st century.

A Few Historical Antecedents: It is sometimes thought that bilingualism in Canada started with the federal government’s Official Languages Act in 1969. But, of course, such a policy innovation could not have had much success without at least some historical antecedents on which to build. One of the first bilingual initiatives was during the Union Government of 1840.

As Mason Wade says in his monumental history, The French Canadians: 1760-1945, the great achievement of the quarter century of Union Government (1840-1867) was the working out of a partnership between English and French, which guaranteed the rights of both in a bicultural country (p.276). This is all the more surprising because the period could not have started out in a worse manner. Lord Durham’s report on the uprisings of 1837-38 had proposed the cultural assimilation of the French Canadians in a union government to overcome the problem of ”two nations warring within the bosom of one state” and the “hopeless inferiority” of the French in an English North America. Thus, the Union Government established by the British Colonial Office made no allowance for the French language in the legislature where English was the only official language. However, Robert Baldwin, leader of the Upper Canada (Ontario) Reform Party recognized early on that the Union could not be governed without the support of the French Canadian Reform Party led by Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, and more importantly their “reciprocal and lasting confidence”. Language was the first test. Together, Baldwin and Lafontaine would fight both for the adequate representation of the French in the Union and for responsible government – the precursor to full-fledged democracy.

It is not an exaggeration to say they worked together. On the opening day of the session, Baldwin resigned from the executive council because the Governor General refused his request to include Lower Canadians (Quebecers) in the body. When Lafontaine was defeated in his seat in Quebec in the election of 1841 due to the manipulations of the Governor General, Baldwin offered him one of the two seats in which he had been elected in Upper Canada.

“The incident was a proclamation of the alliance between the Reformers of the two provinces, and of that collaboration between French and English which was to create a different Canada than Durham had envisaged. A former lieutenant of Papineau, a man against whom a warrant for high treason had been issued four years before, a Catholic French Canadian, was elected from the stronghold of Protestant English Canada.” (Wade:234).

But, this was only the beginning. In England there was a new government that named a new Governor General, Sir Charles Bagot, with instructions to make “No distinctions of National origin, or Religious creed” and to choose the best advisors “without reference to distinction of local party”. Let us remember that these instructions came from a country that had been in a life and death struggle with Napoleonic Europe only 30 years before. Meanwhile, the Lower Canadian Reformers under Lafontaine had become a clear and well-disciplined majority. Bagot asked the opinion of the current government leaders who expressed the opinion that “the support of the French Canadians must be obtained by giving them a larger share of the administration” so that one could “govern the province more effectually”. Bagot invited Lafontaine to be attorney general but he insisted that his colleague, Baldwin, from Upper Canada be included in the ministry. When Lafontaine rose in the legislature he began to speak in French, another minister asked him to speak in English. He replied,

I am asked to pronounce in another language than my mother tongue the first speech that I have to make in this House. I distrust my ability to speak English. But I must inform the honorable member that even if my knowledge of English were as intimate as my knowledge of French, I would nevertheless make my first speech in the language of my French-Canadian compatriots, if only to protest against the cruel injustice of the Union Act in trying to proscribe the mother tongue of half the population of Canada. I owe it to my compatriots. I owe it to myself”. (Wade: 239)

Enraged by the inclusion of the Reformers in the Ministry, the Tories of Upper Canada worked hard and successfully to defeat Robert Baldwin. At which point, Lafontaine invited the citizens of Rimouski, one of the two seats to which he had been elected in Lower Canada, to elect Baldwin there, which they did unanimously. The tables had termed and the alliance had been cemented. Lafontaine continued to maneuver for the repeal of the Union Act’s provision against the legislative use of French until finally the government decided to outflank him and make its own address to the Queen on this subject. A new Governor General, Earl of Elgin, was named. He and the new Colonial Secretary, Lord Grey, agreed that responsible government would be granted to the colonies.

Following another election in 1847, Elgin was able to call on Baldwin and Lafontaine to form the government. A Francophone, Augustin Morin was unanimously elected Speaker and R-E. Caron named president of the Legislative Council. In 1849, Elgin opened the session by reading the speech from the throne in English and French. The proscription of French had been repealed.

It had taken only ten years for the French Canadians to rally from the death sentence pronounced upon their nationality by Lord Durham’s Report and the Act of Union… The rebels of 1837-38, both English and French, now held office and were supported by the British government, while the former loyalists proclaimed their revolt. The great achievement of the next two decades was to be the working out of a partnership of English and French which guaranteed the rights of both.” (Wade: 276)

The second historical case to which I wish to draw attention is with regard to bilingualism – or its lack – in the public service of Canada’s central government. From the time of Confederation in 1867 to the reform of the Civil Service Act in 1918, Cabinet ministers made public service appointments on a base of patronage. Originally the federal government just used the public servants who worked for the Upper and Lower Canadian governments (today’s Ontario and Quebec. Thus, up to 1918, the federal bureaucracy was reasonably bilingual and representative of the French and English populations.

With the gradual reforms of the Civil Service Act in 1908, 1918 and 1961 the merit principle was introduced and employment was based on professional competence and competitive exams. The problem was that professional competence was based on the English culture and often included topics like economics that were not stressed in the Quebec classical colleges. The examinations and interviews reflected patterns of thought of English-speaking Canada. Francophone bilingual skills were not part of the assessment, no provision was made to provide public services in French and nothing replaced patronage to assure language representation (Jackson and Jackson: 393).

The result was that by 1926, the number of French-speaking employees in the federal government had fallen to 20 percent and by 1945 it was 12 percent, while approximately 25 percent of Canadians were French-speaking (Wilson: 244). In 1965, only 5 percent of the senior executives appointed by the Public Service Commission were French-speaking (Jackson & Jackson: 393). Things were so bad by the 1960’s, that the Francophone commissioner on the highly reputed Glassco Commission on government organization felt obliged to publish a separate statement on the subject of bilingualism and biculturalism which the Commission had ignored in its 1962 report (Mallory: 177). In several key departments there was not a single French-speaking high official.

“It should become common practice for English and French-speaking public servants to express themselves in either official language in the course of their work, knowing that they will be understood…and that Canadians of either official language should be able to communicate in their own language with federal public servants; and that the linguistic and cultural values of both groups should be taken into account in public service recruitment and training…(Public Service Commission Report, 1967: 18).

It took 25 years but by 1992, some 29 percent of all public servants were Francophone, although there was still a weakness at the executive level. By 1995 the Prime Minister, the Governor General, the head of the public service, the Chief Justice and the Chief of Staff of the military forces were all Francophones.

The problem prior to the mid-1960s of this “greatest single fault of the Canadian bureaucracy” (Mallory: 177) was the proverbial ripple effects it had like a stone dropped in a pond. Just as with the language of the legislature, bilingualism in the bureaucracy is not an issue that touches people in their every day lives. But both as a symbol and as a practical matter it had far-reaching consequences. First, if French was not used in the public service then Francophones are not tempted to work there and decisions are increasingly taken through an English Canadian prism, reflecting English culture, needs and interests. Second, if the population is not served in French then there is no buy-in by Francophones to the central government, which is increasingly seen as a “foreign” imposition. This was a major contributing factor to the rise of nationalism and the birth of separatism in Quebec. As early as 1971, Prof. James Mallory was able to surmise,

“An effective political system must adequately represent the many divergent sections of the community. In Canada the most basic of these sectional differences arises from the co-existence of two cultures and two language groups. The political system, in the Cabinet, the courts, the usages of Parliament and in other ways, has developed mechanisms of representation and accommodation. And so it should be with the bureaucracy. (Mallory: 175)

The development of French-English relations and a bilingual regime:

THE HISTORICAL STEPS TOWARD A BILINGUAL REGIME IN CANADA

1867 The Constitution Act (formerly the British North America Act) stipulates French and English will be the languages of Parliament and the Quebec Legislative Assembly

1910 – 1997 Associations are launched for the advocacy of French and English minority groups in every province and territory.

1963-67 The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism

1969 Official Languages Act (updated and extended in 1988)

1969 Position and office of Commissioner of Official language is created to oversee implementation of the Act, investigate complaints, conduct studies and report to Parliament.

1969 Official Languages of New Brunswick Act (1993 constitutional amendment of Canada to enshrine the equality of French and English in New Brunswick).

1970 Official Languages in Education Program launched to give federal financial support for minority language and second language education.
1971 Canada adopts an official policy of multiculturalism.

1977 Law 101 in Quebec reinforces French in the public and private spheres.

1977 Canadian Parents for French founded to promote bilingualism and French immersion education.

1978 Court Challenges Programme of Canada to give financial support to individuals and groups to have their language rights clarified before the courts.

1978 Quebec - Canada agreement to let Quebec manage immigration within its borders.

1978-97 French linguistic school boards create in all provinces.

1980 Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on Official Languages created in the Senate and the House of Commons

1981 National Program for the Integration of Both Official Languages in the Administration of Justice.

1982 the Canadian Charter of Rights and Liberties guarantees language rights.

1985 Committee of Deputy Ministers of Official Languages created.
1988 Supreme Court starts clarifying language rights in a series of landmark decisions.

1990 Defendants obtain a right to a trial in their language across Canada.

1994 Provinces and Territories start to work together on French language services in the Ministerial Conference on Francophone Affairs.

1996 Joint Governance committees formed of the federal institutions and the minority language communities.

2001 Minister Responsible for Official Language named.

2002 Official languages are included as a recruitment criterion in the renewed Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

2003 Action Plan for Official Languages announced with $750 million in new funding for the next five years in education and health and other areas.

2004 Treasury Board announce new imperative staffing for bilingual positions.

(Commissariat aux langues officielles, 35e rapport annuel, 2005: pp. 1-1)

SOME SETBACKS ON THE ROAD TO BILINGUALISM

Despite the auspicious alliance between Baldwin and Lafontaine that gave birth to Canada’s democratic development, it must not be assumed that all was rosy between the English (Protestants) and the French (Catholics) in the country’s early days. Many of the Loyalists who fled the American Revolution in the 1770s to come to Canada had bitter memories of centuries of French-English wars in the Americas under which they had suffered. A large number of the settlers who came from Great Britain in the early 1800s were officers and men from Wellington’s army who came straight from the Napoleonic wars and were given land grants in Upper Canada. They had little love for the French. The Irish who came to Canada in the mid-1800s brought with them their bitter Protestant and Catholic feuds. In Europe the Protestants had been in the minority but in North America many thought it was time to take revenge on the ‘papists’. Finally the Riel Rebellions of the 1880s did nothing to improve French-English relations.

These lingering ethnic, religious and linguistic conflicts were behind some of the bitterest disputes in Canadian history over the issue or religious and linguistic education rights. Time and again the Anglo-Protestants used their majority position to threaten closure of Francophone schools unless they abandoned their Catholic character. Canadian history books continue to remind us of:

1871 New Brunswick School Crisis

1885 Northwest Rebellion (Riel)

1890 Manitoba School Crisis

1901 Northwest Territories School Crisis

1912 Ontario School Crisis

The list tells us of the hardships, battles and animosity that barred the road to bilingualism. They make its recent successes an even more impressive testimonial to the slow evolution of tolerance and compromise in the Canadian political culture.

Another list confirms with what slowness the English-speaking majority grudgingly gave French a place in the government of Canada and with what difficulty each battle was won.

1927 French included on postage stamps

1936 French included on bank notes

1959 Simultaneous translation in the House of Commons

1962 Family allowance cheques in French as well as English
(Commissioner of Official Languages 35th Anniversary Report, 2005:p. 6)

Some Conundrums of Bilingualism: Conundrums are riddles or difficult questions. I use the term to refer to situations that present perplexing challenges to those who try to develop and manage Canada’s bilingual regime. I am referring to geographic and demographic realities, socio-economic and technological trends, historical attitudes and aspirations, public opinion, foreign influences, community life and political interests. Let us look at four of these conundrums that effect bilingual trends: moral and ethical issues in a multicultural country and a globalizing world; the distinctness of Quebec; the existence of official language minority communities, and bilingualism in the public service. One could add many other conundrums such as trends to assimilation of Francophones outside Quebec at the same time as French associations and community life are flourishing, but Charles Castonguay focuses on this in his writings.

MORAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES: The moral/ethical conundrum is rooted in the ‘me too’ attitude. Why can’t my group have official language status? Why should French get special treatment in a majoritarily English Canada? Why should the French be better served than any of the large immigrant groups? Are there not more Ukrainians on the Prairies and more Asians than Francophones in British Columbia, and so on. Sometimes neo-Canadians make such claims but often it is a front used by Anglo-Canadians who have never wanted French to have its place in the sun. The only antidote is education about the deal that founded Canada, about governance in Canada necessitating good French-English relations, and about the probability that a loss of bilingualism would lead to a decline in tolerance for multilateralism. The respect for diversity that underlies multilateralism is always in jeopardy if one can judge by the pressures it is under in the United Kingdom following the subway bombings. But then, what does one say to Aboriginals who maintain that they too were one of Canada’s founding peoples and who want respect for their languages. Aren’t Aboriginal rights recognized by the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Around the world, we are told that 2,500 native languages will be lost by 2100 (Globe and Mail, 18-8-05: p.14). Unfortunately, our only viable answers are based on political efficacy rather than morality. Then there are the questions raised about whether it is socially good to keep people ghettoized on the basis of language and whether maintaining different languages and schools and communities is socially or economically healthy. Such issues are reinforced by globalism, which is tearing down all sorts of barriers and placing English on a pedestal as the one universal language of the future.

QUEBEC’S DISTINCTNESS: French Canadians have always been concentrated in Quebec (the reasons for this are another conundrum). More than 80 percent of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec and more than 80 percent of Quebecers are Francophone. And yet the French founded and explored most of the North American continent and the Confederation deal was not limited to Quebec. This leads to contradictory desires to live comfortably in Quebec and to exploit the French-Canadian birthright to the whole of Canada. In terms of bilingual policy there are conflicting demands for bilingual equality across Canada and for building a French regime in Quebec. Such conflicts led to the rupture between Quebecers and their Canadian brethren during the Estates General of French Canada in 1967. Or did it? At the present time, the Quebec Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Benoit Pelletier (formally of the University of Ottawa) is elaborating with Francophones outside Quebec a new Centre on Francophonie in the Americas and a new Quebec policy of francophonie in Canada (le Droit 30-5-05). At the same time because of global and North American competition, a group of linguistic experts has proposed that Quebec’s unilingual Law 101 must be complemented with a bilingual or even plurilingual strategy (Stefanescu 2005). Meanwhile, Canada’s language planners have to deal with ‘purs et durs’ Quebecers who won’t help promote bilingualism and Francophones who want to know why they are getting poor service on Air Canada in Vancouver. But, it was always like this. In the 1890’s, Prime Minister Laurier had to compromise with Premier Greenway on the French school question in Manitoba because Quebec would not give him its support for a hard line policy, fearing Quebec would be the next target for federal intervention.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE MINORITY COMMUNITIES: In Canada the Official Languages Act names French and English as official languages and states that the federal government must look to the protection and promotion of their communal bases. This means that the government must fund minority community associations because they are dispersed and difficult to mobilize on a continuing basis. It takes an immense issue such as the threatened loss of Montfort Hospital, the one Francophone hospital outside Quebec, to rally minority communities. But, government funding causes problems of dependency and power. Relations between the government and representatives of ‘official language communities’ are in a continual state of tension, not to say turmoil. Associations representing ethnic communities are often tendentious, quarrelsome and dissatisfied with governments and politicians in general whom in their eyes, never do enough for their communities. They are in a constant state of low-level conflict with their provinces and municipalities, which cause political ripples throughout the country. But ministers do not like political surprises from the very communities they are funding. So they try to manage these relationships. The latest development is called “joint governance” in which the government establishes joint national committees with leaders of the minority communities to oversee various policy areas. However, community leaders feel that the velvet glove of management hides the fist of political control that emasculates their role as representative of their language group.

BILINGUALISM IN THE FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE: We have already seen that historically bilingualism has been a major issue in the federal public service. Now I want to focus on some of the lingering problems. Although there are many elements to creating a bilingual regime in government administration we may say that they are summarized by the questions of representation and participation. The composition of the public service should reflect fairly well the composition of the society, preferably at all levels. If democracy is to work, all major communities need to be represented in all domains of government. Once there, they should be able to work in their own language and citizens should have access to their government in their own language. After nearly forty year of effort, policies and structures have been put in place in the public service to achieve most of these goals.

Let us look at a few of the hold-over issues in the public service. Conundrums arise when the norms of representation and participation come into conflict with other norms such as merit, efficiency, economy and the old boy system. One issue has to do with senior public servants who have not yet managed to learn French after decades of leeway and all sorts of incentives such as time off for courses and personal coaches who come to their office. They have been ordered to become bilingual but for political or personal reasons or because of their supposedly irreplaceable professional skills their colleagues protect them. Another issue is trying to make the federal public service representative of the provinces in which they operate. For instance, in Quebec there is a considerable deficit in the number of English-speaking public servants in the federal government’s offices. Years of trying to surmount the problem have run into the attitude of the French managers who wonder why they should help the English in Quebec when Francophones have so many problems elsewhere – of course, this attitude is never made public. Or there are the issues of language in the work place. Anglophones complain that after taking French courses they can never get their Francophone colleagues to converse with them in French – because they don’t want to waste their time and efforts on someone with poor French skills. Or what do you do if you are a manager forced to produce with reduced resources and someone wants your unit to operate in two languages?

A Few Proposals for the Future:

There are always steps one can take to improve policies and institutions and I will indeed make a few such proposals. But, bilingualism in Canada is more than a policy; it is a sort of national icon. It has become part of the “Canadian political personality”, even if some analysts claim that Canadian public opinion places it on a lower pedestal than, say, human rights of multiculturalism. The basic problem is that you have to manage bilingualism and invest in it. It is not just a set of principles or public attitudes. During the past 30 years, bilingualism has been presented as a sort of national duty, an obligation. Rarely is it portrayed as a pleasure, a positive benefit in and of itself, as a cultural achievement, an opening to others, a political guarantee, a stepping-stone to multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Most of our proposals will fall in this latter category.

• Although there is a Minister Responsible for official languages in the federal government, there should be an independent department to give this issue the leadership and the clout it requires. As the 35^th Anniversary Report of the Commissioner of Official Languages says, “Implementing rights requires political leadership, organizational capacity and resources” (p. 13). If Stéphane Dion had not been given the specific mandate in 2001, there never would have been the $750 million “Action Plan for Official Languages” in 2003 – after a decade of neglect and of programme and budget cuts.
• Education: Canadians – and especially new immigrants – need continuing education about the fundamental agreements between French and English that underlie the Canadian constitution and Charter and give rise to the country’s political culture.
• The only way to keep up pressure for linguistic rights is to have viable pressure groups in the linguistic communities. They need better funding and less hands on government controls.
• It is one thing to fund minority language groups but they are essentially divisive. Governments have never understood the necessity of supporting bridging groups that provide dialogue and mutual support across the language divide. Canada needs its first French-English cooperative association.
• Dialogue also requires exchanges. Canada should do a much better job of supporting massive student and citizen exchanges across Canada.
• To develop leadership, continuing masses of young people need to be inspired with the importance of bi- and multi-lingualism. Although the University of Ottawa (Canada’s one fully bilingual, major university) is planning to create a new research centre on bilingualism, it is falling down in its role of inspiring its students – in their residences, activities and studies – to see multi-lingualism as a positive benefit not just an added weight and to strive for excellence in their linguistic endeavours. For the same reasons, Canadian Parents for French should be given all the support it needs.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Société Radio Canada are a model of division. They should become a model of dialogue.
• Why don’t our French and English radio stations make the presentation of each other’s music and music groups a cool and habitual practice?
• The public service needs vocal and visible leadership from the top.

The suggestion of the former Commissioner of Official Languages that the “image” of French should be improved (Le Droit, 20-6-05: p. 12)-(hidden on a back page) should be embraced and extended to bilingualism. Presently, only one Ontario student in ten continues their studies in core French through to the 12th grade. The image of bilingualism needs to be changed from a patriotic duty to a springboard toward globalism.

In a recent study (Sorry, I Don’t Speak French) that has received considerable praise, the senior journalist and current Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, points out that language is still Canada’s number one political issue and it is never a question of black or white. Supreme Court decisions have recognized Quebec’s distinctiveness and knocked down discriminatory regulations. Ontario’s policy by “stealth” still refuses official bilingualism but has greatly extended education, legal and health services. Ottawa’s Montfort hospital, the only French/bilingual health complex outside Quebec, not only has been saved but has become a flagship institution. Even Ontario’s health card and drivers’ license have been quietly bilingualized. Still, Fraser maintains Canadians must wake up to the need to improve bilingualism and French – English relations. He stresses that since the near loss of the 1995 Referendum, “No effort was made to increase contact between the rest of Canada and Quebec.” (2006: 291). He proposes:

• Twinning of French and English municipalities.
• Attracting Francophone tourists to the rest of Canada using technological means to offer language information.
• Directing immersion students to summer jobs welcoming Francophone tourists.
• Strengthening school and university exchanges.
• Universities must immeasurably increase their offerings in learning French as a second language especially in public administration, journalism and political science, the fields that are supposed to graduate professionals who can understand in either language to make to the government and communications systems function.
• The media should exchange services and programmes and offer bilingual services.
• Showing Quebec films across Canada.

More than anything, bilingualism needs optimistic and determined leadership, especially from Anglophones. There are fewer bilingual people in Canada than in Great Britain – which has fewer second language skills than any other country in Europe. “Because the two societies are largely unilingual, the national leadership and the national institutions of the country should be able to function in both languages.” (p. 297)

Conclusions

So, what can we learn from these historical vignettes and our overview of the development of bilingualism in Canada? First of all, did Baldwin and Lafontaine create an alliance out of the goodness of their hearts? Well yes, in part they did. As Wade informs us, “A sidelight of the thoroughness of their unity is supplied by a letter of 1844 in which Baldwin consulted Lafontaine about a Quebec school for his son Willcocks: ‘I must not expose him to the miserable embarrassment that I labour under myself for want of French.’ Baldwin’s daughters were already being educated by the Ursulines of Quebec.” (Wade: 242) It is hard to imagine a bilingual system functioning unless at least the élites have some degree of sympathy and opening to each other’s language and culture.

Second, such rapprochement is linked to real political facts. “The French under Lafontaine had formed a large block that was the real balance weight in politics. Bagot saw that to carry on government he must have French support.” (Careless: 201) There is ample evidence in the letters, speeches and reports of the day to show that all the political actors became aware that Canada could not be governed without the positive support of the French Canadians (60 percent of the population) and that this support would not be forthcoming with the proscription of French as a language of law and politics. Quebec and Francophones were then and always have been insurmountable facts on the Canadian political landscape to which institutions and norms must accommodate. To understand why we just have to look at two startling sets of figures. In Quebec more than 80 percent of the population is Francophone and nearly 80 percent of Francophones in Canada live in Quebec. Secondly, between them, Quebec and Ontario continue to account for more than 60 percent of the Canadian population. These figure speak volumes about political forces within Canada.

Third, it is equally true that the English-speaking majority often forgets the reality of the “French fact” in Canada. This is what happened in the federal public service. It was not exactly a plot or a conspiracy. After all, the merit principle was making its way in many democracies “in the interest of creating a qualified and efficient public service … which helps safeguard the neutrality of the bureaucracy (Jackson and Jackson: 389). During that period, Canadians had to worry about two world wars and the great depression to say nothing of industrialization and urbanization. And the French Canadians were not there in Ottawa in sufficient numbers to remind Anglophones of their culture and needs (‘les absents ont toujours tort’). This teaches us that even the most significant political realities can sometimes be ignored if they are not enshrined in government principles, institutions and policies – such as the Official Languages Act of 1969.

Fourth, a very subtle point made by the historian Kenneth McNaught, “The Baldwin-Lafonatine alliance established the real basis of the Canadian experiment in bi-cultural cooperation… based upon a clear understanding of goals, strategy and tactics. It established the point that Bagot reported to his superiors and which remained central to effective government thereafter: Canada could not be governed without the French. But even more important, it showed that Canada could be governed with the French.” (Mcnaught: 99) Lafontaine and his colleagues struggled mightily to demonstrate the “ability, the tact, the firmness and the patience” of the French Canadian representatives (Wade: 262). As Lafontaine said, “I have as a Canadian only one duty to fulfil, that of maintaining the honorable character which has distinguished our fellow countrymen and to which our most bitter enemies are obliged to render homage.” (Wade: 240) Lafontaine always had to demonstrate that he was a loyal subject at the same time as he protected himself against being out-flanked by the radical, nationalist Rouges of L-J Papineau. Nothing has changed in Canadian politics to this day.

Fifth, as early as 1939, Lafontaine had been in contact with Baldwin and his colleague, Francis Hincks. They wanted to join men of their own political convictions rather than accept an ethnic alliance. Hincks wrote Lafontaine saying, “We desire your friendship, esteem and co-operation” (Wade 229). Lafontaine eventually responded, “Our cause is common. It is in the interest of the Reformers of the two provinces to meet on the legislative ground in a spirit of peace, union, friendship and fraternity. Unity of action is more necessary than ever…” (Wade: 231). McNaught was to call it “a system of tolerance within a legislative union” (p. 99). In other words, these early political leaders understood two of the fundamental realities of Canada at the time and in the future. Canada is a country of minorities. No group has ever been predominant. Thus Canadians have had to learn to compromise in order to create good governance across their minority groupings while at the same time respecting the continued existence of each other’s community. Partly in recognition of these twin realities, the Supreme Court of Canada designated respect for minorities as one of the four fundamental and organizing principles of the Canadian Constitution (Reference re the Secession of Quebec: 217). In Canada, minorities (the English in Quebec, the French outside) are the bane of the political life of the majorities. They are also what “keeps them honest” and nurtures the evolutionary demands for effective bilingualism.

Sixth, a hypothesis worth pursuing is that bilingualism is the root concept that has led to the other basic principles of the Canadian political culture such as pluralism, multiculturalism, and respect for diversity that have led to Canada being called the “first 21st century nation”. Of course, each psychological disposition reinforces the others. It is because Canadians learned to be tolerant toward two languages and cultures that they became more cosmopolitan and relatively open to difference. As Will Kymlica has put it, “Canada is a world leader in three of the most important areas of ethnocultural relations: immigration, indigenous peoples, and the accommodation of minority nationalisms …That we have managed to cope with all these forms of diversity simultaneously while still managing to live together in peace and civility is, by any objective standard, a remarkable achievement” (Kymlicka: 3). Still, cultural policy and particularly bilingualism is still a work of art in progress.

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Prepared for presentation to the International Summer Seminar in Canadian Studies of the International Council on Canadian Studies and University of Ottawa and Carleton University. 2005 – 07

John Trent, 11 Williamson Rd., Chelsea, QC., J9B1Z4 819-827-1025,
john.trent@uottawa.ca

www.johntrent.ca

A Brief to the
Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan
and to the Canadian Government

World Federalist Movement – Canada
Prepared by Warren Allmand and John Trent

Introduction: Canada cannot wait until 2009 to change its policies on Afghanistan. Thus our brief is addressed to the Independent Panel, political parties and the Government. Our position concerning the Canadian mission in Afghanistan is informed by recent developments in the context of global governance. By global governance we mean the capacity to take decisions and appropriate actions on behalf of humanity in a world without a global government but with an array of world institutions. Understanding changes in global governance helps Canadians see the context in which we must conduct our foreign policy. In this brief we focus on foreign policy principles conforming to the global context as well as an analysis of the existing situation in Afghanistan. Together these have lead to our policy proposals.

We recommend:

1. The UN and NATO, with Canadian participation, have a responsibility to help the people of Afghanistan with their protection and reconstruction.
2. A strict military solution is not possible in Afghanistan. A change of policy toward a comprehensive peace negotiation is the most viable solution.
3. We should continue to renegotiate our military role with our NATO allies and ensure the operation is part of a multilateral, UN endeavour in the framework of global governance.
4. The Independent Panel should state clearly that Canada should not intervene militarily in Pakistan.
5. Our aim must be long-term peace and reconstruction for Afghans. This complex goal needs a multi-departmental (“whole-of-government”) plan.
6. While decision-making may start with the Prime Minister and Cabinet, it is also essential they secure approval by Parliament.
7. Our political parties and leaders must develop comprehensive strategic policies on foreign affairs, including Afghanistan.
8. There is a desperate need for longer-term strategic and regional thinking in the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defense and that they be listened to by the Prime Minister’s Office.
9. Parties have a responsibility to strive for non-partisan policies to support our men and women overseas when they are in a combat situation.
10. Canada must deploy all its diplomatic capacity behind demands for coherent strategies from the UN and NATO. The Afghanistan mission must be overseen by a NATO strategy and not just American tactics.
11. There is an urgent need for a UN-led, broadly-based political dialogue in Afghanistan, inclusive of all parties that want peace including adequate Pashtun representation, the less strident elements of the Taliban, regional neighbours and the various components of the Afghan society.
12. Canada should influence the UN Secretary General to name a new High-Level Representative to organize a peace dialogue.
13. Sustainable peace includes disarmament, demobilization, reconciliation and re-integration, strengthening of the rule of law and human rights (police, judges, courts etc) and technical assistance for institution building, democratic development and economic infrastructure. Canada has contributions to make toward all these goals
14. It is urgent to balance the two “Ds”, defense and development.
15. Over the next years we should multiply substantially our aid to Afghanistan. Canada should also be reminding its partners in the Afghanistan Compact of 2004 of their financial obligations.
16. The government should mobilize and directly support Canadian, Afghan and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to aid in Afghan development.
17. Our aid should not simply be concentrated in Kandahar and Kabul. The rest of the country needs our help too.
18. Canada should give serious analysis to the proposal of using the Afghan cash crop of poppies for the legitimate world market for medical narcotics
19. The Canadian Government and media ought to be informing the Canadian people that Afghanistan is part of a broader Canadian responsibility to help with failed states and people in distress and that it does so as part of the process of global governance.
20. We live in the context of an emerging global community in which national boundaries can no longer limit responsibility and compassion

1. Policy Proposals: Elaboration

Unlike media snapshots of the Canadian Mission, the situation in Afghanistan is neither black nor white. We believe there is a rational and moral case to be made that Canada has an international responsibility to support peacebuilding in Afghanistan and has indeed made significant contributions. There has been some progress in reconstruction and Canada’s role is appreciated. However, there are grave problems with the Canadian Mission. Our political parties and leaders have never developed a comprehensive strategic policy toward Afghanistan. Canada’s reconstruction and diplomatic efforts are falling far behind our aggressive military stance. We show little diplomatic leadership with our allies in NATO. As Senator Romeo Dallaire recently told the CBC program, The House, despite its considerable force in the world, Canada still thinks it is a 90-pound weakling. Hence the conclusion that Canada must do better.

But, there is an even deeper problem. A strict military solution is not possible in Afghanistan. A change of policy toward a comprehensive peace negotiation is the most viable solution. However, none of the elements of such a peace process are currently in existence. There are no peace negotiations (despite Karzai’s efforts) or dialogue with neighbours; there are no coordinated peace or development plans between a plethora of independent actors, each taking a lead role on specific issues such as the police, drugs, the judiciary, the military and humanitarian relief etc. What, then, should be Canada’s priorities? Our recommendations on improvements to Canada¹s mission in Afghanistan
follow below. However, it should first be noted, in the context of growing turmoil in neighbouring Pakistan, there is no sound basis in policy or in international law, for Canada intervening militarily in Pakistan. While some of Canada’s allies may have plans to increase their military presence in Pakistan, we believe that this Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan should state clearly that
Canada should not intervene militarily in Pakistan.

Doing Better: Stay Involved but Change the Course

In the light of current issues of global governance, we believe that the UN and NATO with Canadian participation have a continuing responsibility to help the people of Afghanistan with their protection and reconstruction. The world wars that almost destroyed the Western world only lasted half a dozen years. After three decades of war, we cannot expect Afghanistan to be rebuilt in a day. The international community should not cut and run when the going gets tough. We should continue to renegotiate our military role with our NATO allies and ensure the operation is part of a multilateral, UN endeavour in the framework of global governance. While their role may change, Canada should not withdraw its troops until the UN’s goals have been attained. But, doing the best we can to help Afghanistan requires much better policies and a clearer strategy.

Doing Better: Developing Foreign Policy Strategy

We would achieve only half our purpose if we were to concentrate on fixing the Afghanistan mission without trying to understand and remedy the incompetent decision-making which got us into our current problems in the first place. It is not sufficient for politicians to make last minute, ill-prepared, un-debated decisions on issues as fundamental as our Afghanistan Mission. It is not sufficient to continue the inherited U.S. policy of a war on terrorism in Afghanistan, quarter-backed by part-time decision-making in the Prime Minister’s Office (Liberal or Conservative). Nor can there be a quick fix to our policy deficits. The weaknesses are much more fundamental. Our aim must be long-term peace and reconstruction for Afghans. Security operations must serve that aim. Because this is a more complex goal it requires a comprehensive, multi-departmental (“whole of government”) approach, preferably backed by all parties. Our political parties must, themselves, make a practice of developing integrated foreign policies and debating them in public. Canadians have a right to know how their leaders intend to deal with issues of global governance – which was not the case with our Afghanistan Mission.

While decision-making may start with the Prime Minister and Cabinet, it is also essential they secure approval by Parliament. They are also responsible for making sure that mechanisms are in place to ensure they receive the best possible advice. This requires longer-term strategic and regional thinking in the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defense. It also necessitates a means of communications and coordination between them and other departments participating in our foreign activities. All this is lamentably lacking. In particular, the Department of Foreign Affairs has been left to languish. Coordination is weak to non-existent. While Afghanistan is a current priority, our planners must balance it with forward thinking about our other present or potential commitments. Our democracy requires that foreign policy be given adequate (not just a day or two) debate in Parliament. Parties have an additional responsibility to strive for all-party, non-partisan policies to support our soldiers overseas when they are in combat.

Doing Better: A Multilateral Leader

Canada has long been an important member of the United Nations. Our increased military budget and contributions to NATO mean that we cannot be ignored. Canada must deploy all its diplomatic capacity behind demands for coherent strategies from the UN and NATO in Afghanistan aimed toward peace negotiations and not just punitive actions or piecemeal relief. Canada should be demanding more adequate, full-time strategic policy-making in NATO for both now and in the future. We cannot leave the impression that it is only the United States that makes decisions in NATO. In the field, there must be a separation of operational humanitarian and military missions, because one de-legitimizes the other in the minds of Afghans and puts relief workers in danger. Wherever security exists, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams must be dismantled and the work left to NGOs. Canada must work to change what has become known as American “over-kill” tactics. The Afghanistan mission must be overseen by a NATO strategy and not just American tactics. For instance, heavy air-strikes must be minimized and more money and effort must continue to be put into training and equipping the Afghan army and police. We must also influence the United States to return to its place at the table of democracies and to accept a collegial approach to global governance.

Doing Better: A Comprehensive Peace Strategy

Canada must now bend its efforts, with its Afghan, UN and NATO partners, toward comprehensive peace negotiations. It must be inclusive of all parties that want peace including adequate Pashtun representation, the less strident elements of the Taliban, regional neighbours and the various components of the Afghan government and society. Conflict resolution specialists tell us that peace treaties often reflect a convergence of preferences among factions. The government and the Taliban may be arriving at a “mutually hurting stalemate” where they recognize a simple military victory is not possible. However, there are three key elements here: the consent of the parties, a comprehensive framework and coherent international assistance. All this indicates there is an urgent need for a UN-led, broadly-based political dialogue in Afghanistan. Canada has a key role to play in securing support from its UN and NATO partners for this new, overarching strategy. As a start, Canada should influence the UN Secretary General to name a new High-Level Representative to take responsibility for organizing a peace dialogue and international aid as head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Sustainable peace includes disarmament, demobilization, reconciliation and re-integration, strengthening of the rule of law and human rights (police, judges, courts etc) and technical assistance for institution building, democratic development and economic infrastructure. Canada has contributions to make toward all these goals. It should be a leading player without pretending to do everything. Structures for collaboration among allies and their agencies must also be in place to provide an agreed multilateral framework. Eventually, peace must be implemented. This will require time, political skills, policing structures, and impartial third-party expertise. This is another reason for insisting Canada must mobilize pertinent departments (a whole-of-government approach) behind the Afghanistan Mission. The government should also be tapping the important capacities of the country’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Doing Better: Rebalancing Development and Defense

We have said little about Canada’s troops in Afghanistan. This is because we think they are doing all that is requested of them – and more. Canadian soldiers in Kandahar do their country honour. We also perceive the elements of an on-going, bi-partisan policy to re-equip and finance our forces. However, more effort should go into police training immediately. What is required now is balancing of the two “Ds” defense and development. It starts with money. Although Canada is one of the most generous donors to Afghanistan, we must do much more. Our few hundred million of aid pales in comparison to the $7 billion in military expenditures. Over the next years we should multiply substantially our aid to Afghanistan. Canada should also be reminding its partners in the Afghanistan Compact of 2004 of their financial obligations. More money will necessitate a more coordinated development strategy from the Afghan government, foreign interveners and the United Nations, because it is a UN not a Western initiative.

This, in turn, will require more Canadian expertise on the ground. The government should mobilize and directly support Canadian, Afghan and international NGOs. It is all well and wise for us to contribute to multilateral aid which is often the best coordinated and targeted. But, this should not be to the exclusion of Canadian aid projects so that Afghans see we have more to offer than tanks. Nor should it be to the exclusion of us continually analyzing where else in the world Canadian resources might make a difference. People are worried about the safety of our aid workers but most of the country is relatively safe. And as a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Flora MacDonald, has been stating after each of her trips to Afghanistan, our aid should not simply be concentrated in Kandahar and Kabul. Our aim should be to create “law and justice” areas outside Kabul that will have a multiplier effect. The rest of the country needs our help too. Canada also needs to use its numerous agencies – such as our International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development – and individual experts – to increase our aid for institution building and democratic development. Canadian scholars should be encouraged to take a long term interest in Afghan culture and society. Exchanges of Afghans and Canadians should become a regular practice. Corporate and agricultural mentoring and micro-finance aid should be fostered. Among contributions to economic growth, Canada should seriously analyze the use of the Afghan cash crop of poppies for the legitimate world market for medical narcotics.

Doing Better: Afghanistan as Part of a Bigger Picture

Some people suggest Canadian troops should be in Darfur or elsewhere. Nothing stops us from lending logistical or other support to the UN mission in Darfur. But, the point is that we are already in Afghanistan and we better see if we can make a success there – and learn from it. Besides, we live in the context of an emerging global community in which national boundaries can no longer limit responsibility and compassion. If a foreign policy is not embedded in its international context, it is likely to fail. Today that context is the steady movement toward improved global governance. The Canadian Government and media ought to be informing the Canadian people that Afghanistan is part of a broader Canadian responsibility to help with failed states and people in distress and that it does so as part of the process of global governance.

But if this is not to be an endless process, Canada must also show some leadership in reforming the United Nations. For instance, if a UN standing military force for emergency peace services had been available, it is much more likely that the Rwanda, Afghanistan and Darfur depredations could possibly have been contained. Ottawa has a duty to explain to our citizens that globalization has meant that global security for the planet and human security for the protection of peoples have come to join traditional concepts of national security. All three are responsibilities of advanced governments.

2. Perspectives and Principles: Among the most striking developments in the recent era is the interdependence of countries resulting from economic globalization (environmental disasters, health epidemics, proliferation of weapons, and global crime and terrorism) and the replacement of international wars by civil conflict. Mutual responsibility is a response to global interdependence. The United Nations has recently recognized the responsibility of the international community to protect citizens at risk in their own country and has created a new Peacebuilding Commission.

Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan challenged UN members to resolve the conflict between non-interference in state sovereignty and the responsibility of the international community to respond to massive human rights violations. The government of Canada responded by creating the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Its report, The Responsibility to Protect, balanced the rights of individuals against state sovereignty. The world leaders’ summit at the UN in 2005 adopted the principle of international responsibility to protect local populations when states cannot or will not do so. The original intervention in Afghanistan was based on the war against terrorism and the self-defense principles of international law, not the more recent emerging norm of the Responsibility to Protect. But, it is the latter which will tend to direct intervention and underlie principles of global governance. Afghanistan’s decent into chaos is in part due to the lack of progress in building global governance institutions.

Comparative studies of peacebuilding following civil wars (129 of them between 1945 and 1999) show that effective peacekeeping provides security that allows peacebuilding operations to create reconstructed institutions and generate the consent and legitimacy that allows peacekeeping to work. Further, these studies demonstrate that impartial, multilateral, UN endorsed operations are necessary to provide the discrete force, economic development and sustained monitoring that makes peacemaking successful. Finally, peacebuilding is a long-term investment in which the international community can only assist countries to get to the point of inclusive, negotiated, power-sharing peace settlements which allow for lasting arrangements. Negotiated settlements are, in themselves, a democratic learning process for establishing acceptable limits to politics, addressing grievances, establishing viable institutions, and testing sincerity.

Recognizing these realities, the United Nations’ new Peacebuilding Commission has been created with the intention of extending the period when world leaders and media focus on regional crises and to advise on cooperative strategies, mobilizing resources and catalyzing broader efforts. This is in response to what is perceived to be an on-going global challenge requiring world cooperation and leadership from countries like Canada.

Indeed, these new challenges dovetail with Canada’s traditional foreign policy. Since 1945 multilateralism and internationalism have been the pillars of our foreign policy. Cooperation with other countries and international organizations allows us to maximize our national capacities to achieve the goals of world peace with justice. A fair and stable international environment is most favourable to a continent-sized middle power with exposure on three of the world’s oceans, living next to the world’s super power.

These perspectives, we think, indicate the principles that should direct the future of multilateral interventions and the present Canadian Mission in Afghanistan. Peacebuilding is the modern face of peacekeeping. It is intended to marry robust military capacity to the practices of nation building. For both humanitarian reasons and self interest, Canada has an internationally endorsed responsibility to cooperate with other countries to help stabilize Afghanistan. Successful peacebuilding must arise from the UN, and focus equally on security and development leading to comprehensive peace negotiations. Participation from Canada will require not only money and troops but also wise leadership and a competent foreign policy to contribute to global governance and overcome human rights abuses and civil conflict. Our goals are developmental, aiming to improve democratic capacities and human rights.

3. Analysis of the Situation in Afghanistan

At this point we should note that the preceding section is based not just on the beliefs and sentiments of the World Federalists but on rigorous international studies. The same is true of this next section examining the current situation in Afghanistan, resulting from on-the-ground reports of soldiers, diplomats and NGOs.

But, first, it is worth recalling that the Afghans have suffered nearly thirty years of the devastation of wars which were not of their making. Their reasonably stable and forward looking government in the context of the 1960s was upset by international communist maneuverings in the 1970s and the Soviet invasion and occupation in the 1980s. This was followed by the war of liberation by the Mujahidin with its U.S and other foreign support. The international community then forgot about Afghanistan, leaving it to its civil war among the warlords and then the takeover by the fundamentalist Taliban. Later, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was to say that the world would never again turn its back on Afghanistan – something that could well be remembered today. Enter the Saudi and Egyptian based Al-Qaeda, which took advantage of Afghan bases and hospitality to hatch international terrorist plots including the 9-11 attack on America. This, in turn, prompted the U.S. led overthrow of the Taliban government. In due course, it was endorsed by NATO and bolstered by UN resolutions.

Although the United States has dominated foreign action in Afghanistan since the attack on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in 2001, and while we might not endorse these operations, Canada has been involved almost continuously. Commandos from Canada’s JTF2 special-forces have been involved in the search for Al-Qaeda leaders. Regular Canadian forces were stationed in Kandahar in 2002. From 2003 to 2005 many Canadian soldiers participated in the UN-authorized, NATO-led “international security assistance force” (ISAF) located in and near Kabul. In late 2005 Canada took a more prominent role in “counter insurgency” work in the Kandahar region. It is this last operation that has been the most controversial and has led to almost all of the Canadian casualties. Intended to combine diplomacy, development and defense (the famous 3-Ds), it is clear the military operation has subverted the other two objectives. Although nominally a NATO operation, the US methodology and tactics have predominated to such a degree that the mission is perceived by many as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and hegemony in the region.

Where do we stand today? Here is a summary of reports from 2007.

• This summer, the International Committee of the Red Cross (in Afghanistan since 1987) gave a press briefing entitled, “Afghanistan: three decades of war and no end in sight”. It emphasized that the conflict has “significantly intensified” and was no longer confined to the south but is spreading throughout the country.
• The September 2007 report of the UN Secretary-General to the Security Council states 2007 has been the worst year for security since 2001. There were an average of 548 incidents a month – a 20 per cent increase over last year.
• According to respected analyst Paul Rogers of Bradford University, there is wide consensus among NATO commanders that no military solution is possible. A change of policy is necessary. Recently, NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the media, “It is my strong opinion that the final answer in Afghanistan will not be a military one and cannot be a military one. The final answer in Afghanistan is called reconstruction, development and nation-building.”
• A book published in October, 2007, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, demonstrates that, “Canada slipped into war in Afghanistan step by step, incrementally, without fully understanding that it was going to war.” There was never a medium- or long-term Afghanistan policy, the authors concluded. The study also shows that the Department of Foreign Affairs has been gutted since the 1990s and rarely coordinates with the Canadian International Development Agency. One of the book’s authors, Janice Stein, professor of conflict studies at the University of Toronto, recently called for a negotiated settlement between the Karzai government and the Taliban.
• Despite all the confusion and difficulties with security, corruption and the drug trade, the World Bank director for Afghanistan reports dramatic improvements in economic and social conditions since the fall of the Taliban. He points to double-digit economic growth, an expanding road network, a surge in school attendance – particularly by girls – and a drop in infant mortality rates – although not necessarily in the war-torn south. The World Bank has committed $1.5 billion of its own money to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund which has also gathered $2.4 billion in pledges from countries. Canada is the largest donor with $211 million that, among other things goes to pay the salaries of health workers and teachers. The UN has also initiated a massive drive to immunize 1.1 million Afghan children against the ravages of polio.
• According to the claims of one Ottawa think-tank, despite Canadian military expenditures of $7.2 billion on military missions in Afghanistan and many billions more by other countries, after five years the Afghan army is still in training and the police force is still under-paid, under-trained, under-equipped and corrupt.
• Also released in October, an in-depth study by the development assistance committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Canada’s foreign aid policy, with two governments and five ministers in six years, is unfocused, weakly mandated and lacking stable, clear direction.
• Despite these set-backs, a broad public opinion survey for the CBC in the summer and autumn indicated that large majorities of Afghans support the Karzai government, appreciate the continuing need for NATO troops to maintain security, and believe the country is going in the right direction.
• A November meeting of the Atlantic Treaty Association in Ottawa heard from field commanders that NATO members in Afghanistan have competing goals. Also, there is little likelihood of lasting progress with only 5,000 of NATO’s 41,000 troops dedicated to combat roles. And Canadian officials acknowledged there is an urgent need to rebalance military and nation-building objectives.
• At the same meeting, the Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan said “there are more Afghans at work, more Afghans at school, more Afghan police forces on the streets, more Afghan army units working side by side with ours.” But the biggest challenge is the lack of progress in building a functioning police force.
• On Nov. 20, an Oxfam report claimed the $15 billion in aid pumped into Afghanistan since 2001 has been largely wasted – soaked up in contractors’ profits, costly expatriate consultants, and uncoordinated, quick-fix projects. It called the development process top-heavy, insufficient and ineffective.

This analysis of the principles of governance and the present Afghan situation lead to our policy recommendations as stated above.

The World Federalists are an international movement promoting global governance that is democratically accountable and based on the rule of law.

Warren Allmand, President of the World Federalists — Canada, is a former federal Cabinet Minister and the previous President of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, (“Rights and Democracy”).
John Trent, a member of the World Federalists Executive, is a Fellow of the Centre of Governance of the University of Ottawa and author of the recently released book, Modernizing the United Nations System.

Nov. 20, 2007

Link : www.worldfederalistscanada.org

Canada’s Foreign Policy Deficits
John Trent
Senior Fellow, Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa

Inside and outside Parliament, Canadians are questioning the validity of our foreign policy – particularly our mission in Afghanistan – and whether the Canadian government is providing leadership on the issue. This debate is only the tip of the iceberg of Canada’s foreign policy deficit. Canada needs a new global vision for the 21st century.

To all appearances, the Government is not providing leadership. Rather than giving vision and direction it simply tells Canadians what to do. Instead of developing a strategy it simply picked up where the Americans left off. Canada’s ‘new’ government has not inspired Canadians with a sense of the meaning of Afghanistan in the broader picture of world politics or informed them through public debates. Canada always seems to be playing catch-up to changing events. Rather than a “whole-of-government” approach, foreign policy has been centralized in Harper’s office.

The meaning of leadership is a question that has bedeviled civilizations as far back as the Chinese and Greeks. It is still tied to situations and is very much in the eye of the beholder. Most studies of political leadership seem to boil down to a combination of three qualities: vision, inspiration and pragmatism. Strangely enough this comes out as V.I.P. – very important people – which leaders are meant to be. Perhaps more modern terms for vision, inspiration and pragmatism would be strategy, communications and operationalization.

Let’s start with the question of vision. Vision includes a strategic focus on goals, a sense of purpose focused on developing ideas, institutions and causes. It is not about blindly following preconceived ideas or a narrow concentration on short-term tactics and personal relationships. In his letters, Alexander the Great summarized vision in the statement, “When deliberating, think in terms of campaigns, not battles.”

This is precisely the problem with Harper’s foreign proclamations, in particular, and Canadian foreign policy, in general. It is structured to think in terms of “battles” rather than “campaigns”. Should the Conservative be blamed? Only in part. The Afghan mission was initiated by the Liberals under Chrétien and reengaged under Martin. The Conservatives have only been in government a short time and they came to power without foreign policy knowledge or experience.

In fact, lack of preparation and no vision of world affairs is a failure of all our political parties. It is our first foreign policy deficit. If Canada is going to be an effective, 21st century, international player, all political parties must create standing international (now global) affairs committees to study and debate foreign relations in an open manner. It takes a real effort to get local politicos to take an interest in international issues. Canadians should never be caught off guard again. No party should come to power without a world vision and foreign policy expertise.

Inside government, most of the policy on Afghanistan has been developed as though it were a single, discrete activity. We are missing the linkages. Most of what we call “policy” is simply incremental decision making. Policy deficit no. 2 is that there is little investment in coordinated, long term strategy. That is why politicians in general and the Conservatives in particular are having such a difficult time trying to explain our goals to the people.

There are, in fact, two problems. There is a lack of strategic thinking and planning and Harper is not making use of the planning that is available. The federal government did a good, work-a-day job of preparing policy plans at the time of the reestablishment of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. The Departments of Defense and Foreign Affairs prepared thorough Cabinet Memorandums. Furthermore, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFO) already had in place a Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) had prepared a complex policy document asking its minister to adopt DFO’s whole-of-government approach to a “total response” to prevention and reconstruction in fragile states.

But the decision-making still gives the impression of being in the incrementalist mode and departmental in nature. Also, one can find no evidence the Harper government made use of the resources and planning that were available to it. One wonders if there still isn’t an obsession of distrust with what the Conservatives consider to be the “Liberal” public service.

The Federal Cabinet’s Foreign Affairs Committee needs to be informed on a continuing basis by a Global Affairs Committee of officials from all appropriate departments (Foreign Affairs, Defense, Environment, CIDA, Trade, Justice, Immigration, Fisheries, Industry etc.) It should include or have a parallel committee from relevant government agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) including research centers with expertise on international peace and security, democracy and human rights, development and good governance. Canada has this competence but it is rarely consulted. The tasks of the strategic coordinating units will be to offer politicians and the public a vision of the scope and complexity of the world’s hot spots.

We cannot assume such policy development is going on in NATO or the U.S. There is little evidence of NATO strategic thinking – which Canada should be demanding. Recently, American policy comes mainly from the Pentagon and the White House, by-passing broader, established channels. New publications make it clear that the failure in Iraq is a failure of strategy flowing from misinformed “delusional ideologues”. The lesson is clear. Canadians must think for themselves. We must have strategic expertise, not just the latest notions from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Moreover, if Canadians are to accept the high costs of our mission in Afghanistan, Canada’s political parties, diplomats and generals must learn to think in global terms rather than simply about distinct programs (“campaigns not battles”). Already they should have been explaining to Canadians the new world politics in which we must operate. The change is so profound that in international studies we now talk not only about ‘national security’ but also about ‘human security’ (the responsibility to protect civilians) and ‘global security’ (the vital interests of the planet).

A global strategy for Canada’s role in the world has to marry a vision of the current international context to our traditional foreign policy goals. To simplify, the context of the early 21st century is characterized by turbulence, complexity and interdependence. In other words: there will continue to be conflicts and change; decisions will require solid global knowledge and experience; and we can’t opt out of world problems. “National” foreign policy must include the global challenges facing all countries as well as our own particular interests.

For example, the United Nations has created a Peacebuilding Commission to bring security and development to failed states. One of the UN’s few reforms, re-building failed states such as Afghanistan is a global problem requiring continuing efforts of multilateral consortiums.

Peacebuilding will be one of the crying needs of the world for the foreseeable future. It includes everything from pacification to institution building, protection of human rights, and socio-economic development. Peacebuilding is joining peacekeeping, not supplanting it and it is likely NATO will gradually take a leading role to bolster the UN in this task.

Peacebuilding has a three-D composition: defense, diplomacy and development. In Afghanistan, Ottawa, like the Americans, has concentrated too much on military tactics while under-resourcing ancillary activities like intelligence, making of friends in the population, economic development, preparing the Afghan security forces, and the evolution of internal and regional politics.

Canada’s traditional international policy has focused on stability through peace and justice. Justice is a codeword for greater equity and development. Our major means of delivery is through multilateral institutions, which are the only ones with the experience and knowledge to deliver complex, global policies. The White House, for instance, does not have the diversity and the competence to make international policy.

Canadians need to understand this context if they are to accept our costs in lives and money in this far off land. Our mission in Afghanistan can be improved, but it is part of an absolutely essential role Canadians must accept if we are to make a contribution to international stability, peace and justice – which, of course, is in our own interest as a continent sized country, continuously subjected to global trends. Afghanistan will not be our last such endeavor, so we must learn and learn well.

The second aspect of leadership is being able to inspire people. Inspiration means the capacity to mobilize, share and lead by example. It is developing loyalty by exercising authority rather than power. Its opposite is centralization, the cult of the personality and making deals to seduce, control or dominate. Alexander said, “It is as important to win morally as to win militarily.” Ethical communication is crucial to leadership.

The great problem with our Afghan mission is that no one took the time to communicate to Canadians that it was not one of our traditional ‘peacekeeping’ operations and that, in fact, we are now largely out of that role. No wonder pollsters are finding highly divided attitudes about our mission. Rather than explain our new ‘peacebuilding’ role,
the Conservative government simply copied the U.S. by playing the military, counter-terrorist card in Afghanistan. They parroted Bush by claiming it was a war of good over evil. And they followed the dangerous American error of throwing together humanitarian and military operations in the Provincial Reconstruction Teams.

Our Defense Minister wandered about repeating it is a UN/NATO mission as though this magically explains everything. It does not help Canadians who were expecting our troops to be ‘peacekeepers’ but saw them coming back in coffins instead. Communication was also stymied by being centralized in Harper’s office so that the full communications resources of the federal government do not appear to have been put to use. It would not take very much to inspire Canadians with the nobility and importance of our new ‘peacebuilding’ role that must mix security with negotiations and development – but it is still not being done!

Just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to communicate. The public needs to be informed but also consulted. Global Policy Committees in the political parties (as suggested above) could help bridge this gap. They should invite specialists, hold consultations and sponsor public meetings.

Canada should also put all its brains to use. This is deficit no.3. The country has dozens of international institutes and chairs of foreign policy and defense studies in its universities. But the Department of Foreign Affairs has decapitated its Centre for Policy Development which supported public input and funded research. It’s like doing away with your eyes and ears. This short-sighted act must be rectified if Canada is to benefit from a wide range of foreign policy expertise.

At the same time, Canada rarely consults its civil society organized in hundreds of world class Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The same can probably be said of our ethnic populations, such as Canadian-Afghans. Outside Canada, it is common knowledge that civil society is an increasingly important international actor. It brings to the table international savvy, on-the-ground experience and organizational expertise.

For instance, the “Peace Operations Monitor” website (www.peacebuild.ca/powg/) to provide objective, up-to-date, comparative, information on complex peace operations like Afghanistan has been established by a group of NGOs in Canada, not the Government. Such contributions should not be ignored. Our government could have gotten valuable intelligence and advice from the on-the-ground Canadian and UN aid workers in Afghanistan. The day of secretive, top-down, follow-the-leader foreign relations are wildly out-of-date.

Pragmatism, the third element of leadership, is the continual testing of strategy against evolving realities. It is the practical testing of one’s vision so as to be able to communicate substantively. We learn from on-the-ground intelligence and reality checks in order to implement change. Pragmatic verification of facts helps provide perspective that allows us to see ourselves. The contrary is stultified, ideological repetition of past errors. Alexander crystallized pragmatism in the declaration, “Nothing so steadies a company facing great odds as a sober recitation of facts.”

In foreign affairs, a pragmatic approach depends on competent institutions, information and individuals. Institutions require not only good structures that evolve with the times but also adequate, long term investment. After a five year delay, it is good news indeed that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) established a 12-member Afghanistan Task Force in August. But it leaves open a number of questions. Should it not be an inter-departmental Task Force, led by DFA? Who is coordinating the 50 other people working on Afghanistan?

More fundamental questions bring us to our fourth foreign policy deficit. Has the Task Force been mandated to coordinate relations with NATO, the UN, the U.S., and our NGOs in the field? Is it supported by a regional policy group within the Department to keep an eye on the context of neighboring countries within which our Afghanistan Expeditionary Force is operating? Canada must have the institutional capacity to develop alternate policies for corruption, the drug trade, warlords, the Taliban and democracy building. This requires intermediary regional policy teams to coordinate all the varied aspects of our field operations in a particular theatre of activity.

Military deployments are dependent on effective information. This is even truer of new-style peacebuilding missions. Not only do they need to be imbedded in a strategic vision but they also require good, on-the-ground intelligence. Maybe it is so “secret” that none of us knows, but one has to wonder where our JTF2 commandos and the special forces of our NATO allies have been in recent months and why they have not been able to stop the Taliban from crossing the mountains from Pakistan. Why did not Canada and NATO start a crash program of training an Afghan army and police force several years ago instead of distributing berets and bullet proof vests? Why do some of their police still go into the field with as little as two weeks’ training?

Even more important from the point of view of adequate intelligence, why are we always behind the eight ball, reacting to the latest tactics of insurgents? Why are we not “swimming with the people” so that we know what is going on and what is likely to happen? We see here our fifth policy deficit: when the government knew we were getting into an up-front role in Afghanistan, why did it not change Section 16 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to allow it to collect foreign intelligence? Without our own sources of international information we are totally dependent on others. Or, as the NATO commander said recently, “We are like a blind boxer.”

More generally, if Canada is going to be in the game of ‘peacebuilding’ we are going to have to learn to identify individuals with experience in conflict-affected countries, attract people with a multidisciplinary perspective and find professionals with field experience. We need greater investments in country analysis, local information, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

Knowledgeable individuals can be as important a source of informed public discourse as policy institutions and intelligence services. Every once in a while, individual reporters, country specialists, parliamentarians, public commentators and in-country aid workers can be of inestimable help in providing informed opinion and setting the public debate. The government should not ignore them. Nor should it let itself become a victim of such debilitating individual faults as obsession, blinkered perspectives, and distrust.

3 Jan. 2007

11 ch.Williamson, Chelsea, QC. J0X 1Z4, 819-827-1025, john.trent@uottawa.ca

First Published in the West Quebec Post, January 2007

With the heading “Afghanistan Mission: Canada’s Foreign Policy Deficits

Exclusive to the Ottawa Citizen, Sept.12, 2006

Home Truths about Canada in Afghanistan

It was profoundly disturbing but not surprising to read in the Globe and Mail (31 Aug. 06) about a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan asking Canada’s Defence Minister, “Do we still have the public in general backing our mission?”

There are several answers. The brutally frank answer is probably no, at least according to opinion polls. But who knows what is in the hearts of Canadians? This Canadian has nothing but respect and admiration for the job our people are doing in Afghanistan — and sympathy for the hits they are taking.

But that is not enough. If Canadian support is declining it is mainly because the public is poorly informed. There are few foreign policy debates in this fabled land of democracy. We need to broaden our view of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan and our role in the world.

Four years of research for a book on the modernization of the United Nations have made abundantly clear a few home truths about the present nature of international affairs and Canada’s role in them.

First, if it ever was, nothing is any longer black and white in world affairs. Three years ago, President George W. Bush stated that the job of the United States was to win wars and leave peacekeeping to others. Today he is up to his neck in attempting to “keep the peace.”

Similarly, Canadians must be aware that any player in world affairs must now be prepared to handle missions that run the gamut from traditional peacekeeping to the more dangerous tasks of peacemaking. This has little to do with backing the U.S. It has everything to do with supporting the new Peacebuilding Commission of the United Nations.

Second, countries that want world stability based on improved peace with justice are going to have to give strong and competent help to peacebuilding missions throughout the world for the foreseeable future.

Third, peacebuilding missions will of necessity be long and complex. Rome was not built in a day and countries destroyed by years of fighting cannot be rebuilt overnight. Time and again, we have seen that the international community has to learn to maintain its assistance long after the TV cameras have left the scene. We have let Afghanistan down before. It will take deft political leadership to sustain public support in the face of losses and costs.

Complexity derives from the necessity to keep the peace in failed countries at the same time as reestablishing law and order, building corruption-free education and public service, reigniting the economy and all the while striving to reinforce public confidence. It’s a tall order that requires a competent United Nations supported by its member states.

What does all this mean for Canada? We are going to have to learn to keep the faith against great odds. This requires information, leadership and public debate. Fundamental Parliamentary debates must become the norm, not the exception. Political leaders, parties, policy institutes and academics must make it a duty to speak to the Canadian people and help them to keep up-to-date with evolving world affairs.

But, words are not enough. Canada must continually invest in international competence. We need a small but robust fighting force trained for battle, development and peace. To play a meaningful international role, Canada needs an air transportable brigade to contribute to UN missions.

Even this is not enough. Canada also needs to back up multilateral missions with police forces, administrators and democratic institution building. For this to be successful, we also need to send in administrative, economic and judicial trainers. This is not pie in the sky dreaming. As a country, we already have available the personnel and skills, the institutes and programs to make tis happen.

All it requires is political will, leadership and investment. It is encouraging to see our governnment is intent on providing more resources for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar over the next year. We will, of course, be investing in the world’s future, which is our own.

John Trent, Fellow, Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa.

John & Colette Trent, 11 Williamson Rd., Chelsea, Qué., Canada, J9B 1Z4, (819) 827-4407, jtrent@uottawa.ca

Presentation to Forum Quebec, Liberal Party of Canada
Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, 10 août, 2007
John Trent
Senior Fellow, Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa

Canada needs a new global vision for the 21st century if we are to assume our adulthood and play a role in the world consonant with our values, population and resources and our position in such multilateral groups as the UN, the G-8, the Commonwealth and the Francophonie. We must set our goals and provide the means to attain them.

1. Lack of preparation and lack of vision of world affairs is a failure of all our political parties. If Canada is going to be an effective, 21st century, international player, all political parties must create standing global affairs committees to study and debate foreign relations. They should invite specialists, hold consultations, sponsor public meetings and publish their findings.

2. Political parties must explain to Canadians the new context of global politics. The change is so profound that international studies now talk not only about ‘national security’ but also about ‘human security’ (the responsibility to protect civilians) and ‘global security’ (the vital interests of the planet). The context of the early 21st century is characterized by turbulence, complexity and interdependence. In other words: there will continue to be conflicts and change; decisions will require solid global knowledge and experience; and we can’t opt out of world problems (Trent, 2007). “National” foreign policy must include the global challenges. Thanks to George W. Bush we know that a foreign policy based on nationalism, hegemony and unilateralism no longer works. The new key words are democracy, partnership and multilateralism. This suits Canada.

Canadians need to understand this context if they are to accept our costs in lives and money in far off lands like Afghanistan. Our mission can be improved, but it is part of an essential role Canadians must accept if we are to make a contribution to international stability, peace and justice – which, of course, is in our own interest as a vast country, continuously subjected to global trends. Afghanistan will not be our last such endeavor, so we must learn and learn well.

3. Foreign policy (or better, “Global Policy”) needs to find a fit with our traditional internationalism and the values of our citizens. Canada’s traditional international policy has focused on stability through peace and justice. Justice is a codeword for greater equity and development. Our major means of delivery is through multilateral institutions like the UN, which are the only ones with the knowledge and legitimacy to deliver complex, global policies. The White House, for instance, does not have the diversity or the competence to make international policy. But multilateral institutions must be up to the job. A first priority for Canada is to take the lead with NGOs to mobilize other countries to transform the UN into an institution capable of dealing with global challenges such as the environment, pollution, diseases, development and human rights. A second priority for Canada is to help promote democracy throughout the world so that, eventually, international organizations will become democratic too. Democracies also tend to be more prosperous, more stable, more cooperative and less prone to war. We must reinforce our democracy promoting institutions and our teaching and research on democracy.

As regards our citizens, Foreign Minister Bill Graham found that almost all participants in his consultation stated that Canada’s foreign policy should be grounded in a complementary basis of values and an internationalist vision (A Dialogue on Foreign Policy, Canada, Dept. of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2003). More recently, pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research concluded that “young Canada” (under 40) is more pluralistic, tolerant, globalist, enterprising and less paranoid about terrorism and ideology (Lawrence Martin in Globe and Mail, 6-08-07) than our American and European counterparts. Foreign policy should mirror these values.

4. Complexity in global affairs calls for a new form of decision-making based on team work and knowledge. The prime minister provides overall leadership, but must rely on a team of global affairs ministers and accumulated expertise within government, institutes and NGOs.

5. In government, most of what we call “policy” is simply incremental decision-making. There is little investment in coordinated, long term strategy. The Federal Cabinet’s Foreign Affairs Committee needs to be informed on a continuing basis by a Global Affairs Committee of officials from all appropriate departments (Foreign Affairs, Defense, Environment, CIDA, Trade, Justice, Immigration, Fisheries, Health, and Industry etc.) It should have a parallel Global Affairs Support Committee from relevant government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and research centers. Their main task is to provide information on the world’s hot spots. We cannot assume such policy development is going on in NATO or the U.S. We must have strategic expertise, not just the latest notions from the Prime Minister’s Office.

For example, the United Nations has created a Peacebuilding Commission to give continuing focus to security and development in failed states such as Afghanistan because it is a global problem requiring long term efforts of multilateral consortiums. Peacebuilding includes everything from pacification to institution building, protection of human rights, and socio-economic development. In a complex and turbulent world Canada must balance its security and development responsibilities. Peacebuilding is joining peacekeeping, not supplanting it.

6. In looking to its global responsibilities, Canada cannot forget its own backyard. Northern sovereignty is complex and includes ports, heavy icebreakers, military surveillance and air-sea rescue. But more than anything it means cooperating with our northern peoples to attain mutual goals and cooperating with the world community to create an Arctic Protection Treaty similar to that in the Antarctic. Another home problem entails focusing on ownership of our economy. Without a competent economy we cannot attain our foreign policy goals. The government must encourage Canadian business to maintain ownership of leading corporations.

7. The public needs to be informed but also consulted. Canada should put all its brains to use. The country has dozens of international institutes and chairs of foreign policy studies. But the Department of Foreign Affairs has decapitated its Centre for Policy Development which supported DFAIT’s public input and funded research. This program must be reinstated.

Also, Canada rarely consults its civil society organized in hundreds of world class Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The same can probably be said of our ethnic populations, such as Canadian-Afghans. Outside Canada, it is common knowledge that civil society is an increasingly important international actor. It brings to the table international savvy, on-the-ground experience and organizational expertise. Canada must work with its NGOs.

8. Foreign deployments are dependent on effective information. We must put our JTF2 commandos and the special forces of our NATO allies to better use; change Section 16 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to allow it to collect foreign intelligence; and consult our multi-national population and all those with experience in conflict-affected countries, all to be overseen by new Regional Coordination Committees in DFAIT.

9. But, words are not enough. If Canada wants to reestablish multilateralism and the UN, rather than depending on the U.S., it must have the means. Paul Martin put $12.8 billion in his five-year budget plan toward an air transportable international intervention brigade and started to increase our aid budget. We must finish the job.

Aug. 10, 2007, 11 ch. Williamson, Chelsea, QC. J0X 1Z4, 819-827-1025, john.trent@uottawa.ca

Ideas first Published in the West Quebec Post, January 2007

Entitled “Afghanistan Mission: Canada’s Foreign Policy Deficits”. Theory supplemented by:

John E. Trent, Modernizing the United Nations System, Barbara Budrich, Upladen, 2007

Sommaire

Le Canada a besoin d’une nouvelle vision globale fondée sur la démocratie, le partenariat et le multilatéralisme.

1. Chaque parti politique doit avoir un comité permanant sur Les affaires globales.
2. Les partis politiques doivent démontrer du leadership en expliquant au public le contexte nouveau de la politique globale : turbulence, complexité, interdépendance.
3. Prioritairement, la politique étrangère du Canada doit : a) travailler avec les Organisations internationales non-gouvernementales (OINGs) pour rallier les pays à la transformation de l’ONU en organisation apte à confronter les défis globaux tels l’environnement, les maladies contagieuses, le crime, le développement et les droits humains; b) aider à promouvoir la démocratie à travers le monde; et c) refléter nos valeurs d’internationalisme, tolérance, pluralisme et entrepreneurship.
4. Les réalités d’un monde de plus en plus complexe exigent que la politique étrangère soit dirigée non par un chef omnipuissant mais par une équipe politique appuyée par des fonctionnaires qualifiées.
5. Le Conseil des ministres doit être encadré par un nouveau Comité des affaires globales tiré des ministères pertinents, lui-même conseillé par un Comité d’appui d’affaires globales représentant des agences gouvernementales et des institutions non-gouvernementales et universitaires qui devraient (parmi d’autres choses) aider les ministres à équilibrer leurs efforts dans les domaines de la sécurité et du développement.
6. Pour la protection de l’Arctique canadien, on doit d’abord coopérer avec les peuples sur place et ensuite élaborer un Traité de protection de l’Arctique similaire à celui qui existe dans l’Antarctique. Similairement, pour protéger et promouvoir le Canada dans un monde compétitif, le gouvernement doit encourager les entrepreneurs canadiens à rester propriétaires de leurs entreprises.
7. Le Ministère des affaires étrangères et du commerce international doit immédiatement restaurer son programme de consultations publiques et de financement de la recherche et il doit en plus coopérer avec les organisations non-gouvernementales pour atteindre ses objectifs.
8. Pour renforcer les Nations Unies et le multilatéralisme, le Canada doit fournir une brigade aéroportée pour des interventions internationales et doubler le montant de son aide internationale.

Voir : John E. Trent, The Modernization of the United Nations System, Barbara

Budrich Publishers, Upladen, Germany, 2007. and

“The Afghanistan Mission: Canada’s Foreign Policy Deficits”, West Quebec Post,

Jan. 12, 2007.