​Last week, Marcus Gee published a piece in the Globe and Mail critical of Quebec’s Bill 21. (You can find the text of the bill itself here.)
 
Like many Canadians (both within and outside of Quebec), Gee takes deep offence to the legislation which prevents Quebeckers in positions of public authority – including teachers, transit workers, prosecutors, etc. – from wearing religious symbols or attire in the workplace.
 
As he explains: “That such a thing could have happened in 21st-century Canada almost defies belief… There is no evidence at all that a teacher in a hijab or a cop in a turban somehow threatens the secular status of the public service, the gains of the Quiet Revolution, or the Quebec way of life.”
 
He is therefore delighted that a number of Canada’s big city mayors have recently spoken out strongly against the law, especially since federal leaders have largely held their tongues.
 
Gee acknowledges the common objection to the mayors’ posture. When anglophones from outside of Quebec criticize that province’s legislation, there is a risk that “their campaign could blow up in their face, leading Quebeckers to rally around the fleur-de-lis and lowering the odds of overturning the law through Quebec’s internal political process.”
 
Prime Minister Trudeau, who has recently expressed his deep personal opposition to Bill 21, argued similarly in an interview with the CBC.
 
He was not involving the federal government in legal action at this point to “ensure that it is Quebeckers themselves” making the case to the Quebec government that the law is discriminatory, without giving an “excuse to the Quebec government that this is federal interference.”
 
Gee’s response is unwavering:
 
“The argument has been wrong before and it is wrong now. This is a matter not of politics or strategy but of principle, and the principle – that no Canadian should face discrimination on the basis of religious belief – could hardly be more important. The mayors are right to take the stand. It’s never a bad time to speak up about rights.”
 
Such a position might make some readers feel good inside, but it’s not going to change the mind of the Quebec government.
 
That doesn’t mean, however, that the mayors should stay silent.
 
I would much prefer that the $100,000 Brampton City Council has pledged to support the legal fight against the legislation be spent on a public relations campaign welcoming any and all Quebeckers to move to Brampton (or Toronto, or Calgary, or London, or anywhere else in Canada for that matter) and apply for any job that suits them.
 
Quebec’s religious minority communities need to know that there are nine other provinces and three territories that would be delighted if they chose to teach, serve as police officers, or practice medicine in their jurisdictions.
 
It seems to me that this sort of positive campaign would send a much more practical message to Quebec Premier François Legault and his supporters.
 
Discrimination on the basis of religion is not just morally deplorable, it’s also a terrible business strategy, especially in a province that is already desperately short of health care and other public sector workers.
 
In sum, Bill 21 must be contested in the courts but, at this point, that battle is best left to Quebeckers.
 
Individual Canadians are welcome to support the current legal challenge, but municipal leaders might best demonstrate their opposition to the legislation by letting those who have been disenfranchised know that there are jobs waiting for them across the rest of the country.
 
A mass exodus of Quebeckers might not convince the entire provincial political establishment that Bill 21 is wrong, but it will certainly send a practical message that needs to be heard.
 
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For a summary of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s campaign against the legislation, see here. To understand why nearly 2/3 of Quebeckers support Bill 21, see this thoughtful article by André Pratte.
 
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The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) has just released a major report: “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy.”
 
(Disclosure: Although I did not contribute to the report, I am currently working with CIGI on two separate projects.)
 
The paper, authored by Aaron Shull and Wesley Wark, is based on an extensive, year-long consultative process that included 250 subject matter experts from across the country.
 
A blog like this cannot do justice to the 20 pages of serious analysis that Shull and Wark have produced, and I therefore encourage you to read the report for yourself.
 
I do, however, want to draw attention to what appears to me to be an inconsistency in the recommendations section.
 
I noticed it because a number of years ago I made the same mistake.
 
The authors suggest, convincingly, that Canada and Canadians would benefit from greater transparency and public reporting on issues of national security.
 
To that end, they call on the prime minister to issue two annual statements to Parliament (one on worldwide threats and one on intelligence priorities), an idea that I quite like.
 
It seems to me, however, that a separate recommendation about national security governance could undermine that same spirit of transparency.
 
The report proposes the (re-)establishment of a cabinet committee on national security, to be chaired by the prime minister.
 
Eight years ago, when the Harper government disbanded a similar committee, I criticized the decision as “regressive” in a blog for the Toronto Star.
 
“Its existence [had] confirmed,” I suggested, “that, in spite of Ottawa’s refusal to update the Liberals’ 2004 national security strategy, not to mention its unwillingness to issue a white paper on foreign policy, the Conservative government nevertheless understood the importance of thinking seriously about Canada’s long-term strategic posture in world affairs.”
 
Scrapping the committee suggested to me that the prime minister was deprioritizing national security.
 
With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that I was wrong.
 
In the Canadian system of government, prime ministers get the strategic-decision making process that they want.
 
For a time, Prime Minister Harper believed that chairing a cabinet committee on national security would provide him with the information he needed to govern effectively.
 
Two years later, he changed his mind. Apparently, he preferred to liaise with his National Security Advisor directly, and alone.
 
When Prime Minister Trudeau took over in 2015, he chaired a cabinet committee on intelligence and emergency management.
 
It, too, didn’t last. Again, it appears that, for whatever reason, the prime minister did not find it useful.
 
My point here is not that a cabinet committee on national security chaired by the prime minister is necessarily a bad idea.
 
Rather, it’s that our last two prime ministers have explicitly rejected it because it hasn’t worked for them personally.
 
It follows that if such a structure were imposed, they would inevitably work around it, and Canadians would be left misled in terms of where national security decisions were really being made.
 
Consider the situation in the United States: regardless of the formal structures in place, each president still delegates power, authority, and influence among the secretary of state, the national security advisor, and the vice-president differently.
 
In sum, if we want greater transparency from government, it’s best to let the prime minister design the system in a way that works for them, and then to ask pointed questions until we get the answers we’re looking for.
 
If Mr. Trudeau doesn’t want to chair a cabinet committee on national security, perhaps start by asking him why.
 
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Foreign Affairs published a great essay on the role of the US national security advisor back in 2009. It was based on a book that is summarized here. For more on the Canadian side, take a look at this older paper by Andrew Brunatti as well as Greg Fyffe’s chapter in Top Secret Canada.
 
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For much of the last two weeks, I’ve been struggling with how to respond to a Globe and Mail article by the Hon. Jean Charest, Zachary Paikin, and Stéphanie Chouinard, titled: “A more independent Canadian foreign policy requires embracing bilingualism.”
 
My difficulties have been twofold:
 
First, I have worked with two of the authors and have the deepest respect for them.
 
Mr. Charest is one of the best guests ever to appear in my strategic decision-making course. His presentations are inspiring, and I always find myself agreeing with the general tenor of his message.
 
Professor Chouinard is a rising star at the Royal Military College in Kingston, and she too impressed me deeply when we participated on a panel together a couple of months ago.
 
Second, I could not agree more with the first half of their argument:
 
“Canada’s place on the world stage … depends on us embracing our bilingual history and character.”
 
As they suggest, Canada’s diplomatic corps must be, at minimum, fully bilingual.
 
Indeed, I would hope that the majority of our senior diplomats learn a third language as they progress in their careers.
 
Understanding other languages and cultures is one of the most reliable ways of developing empathy, intercultural awareness, and the ability to think flexibly and creatively.
 
And that is in addition to the well-documented cognitive and neurological benefits.
 
What’s more, seeing as over half the world now speaks more than one language, it is hard to imagine how any state, other than perhaps a superpower, could function effectively on the global stage without a multilingual diplomatic corps.
 
My problem, then, is with the rest of what the article has to say.
 
The authors maintain that Canada has a “growing reputation” as a “vassal state” of the United States.
 
The choice of words is shocking, seeing as for the last three years they have been invoked regularly by the Canadian commentator Irvin Studin in support of his opposition to NAFTA – an agreement that Mr. Charest in particular has actively supported.
 
Charest, Paikin, and Chouinard suggest that emphasizing Canadian bilingualism would draw international attention to Canada’s independence from the United States, and that such independence would promote the national interest.
 
“Canada requires a more independent foreign policy” they say.
 
I see things differently.
 
On its own, Canadian bilingualism hardly differentiates this country on the world stage. Rather, it’s American monolingualism, and indeed the monolingualism of the rest of the Five Eyes alliance, that stands out.
 
Put differently, Canadian bilingualism derives much of its meaning from of our close relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
 
Our capacity to negotiate with French-speaking countries that do business with the Five Eyes in their language of choice is part of what has always made us disproportionately relevant internationally.
 
The weaker our Five Eyes relations, and especially our relations with the United States, the less relevant our bilingualism becomes to our diplomatic toolkit.
 
A deep and durable relationship with the Americans is therefore not only critical to our continental interests, it also enhances our international influence.
 
So by all means, let’s increase the linguistic proficiency of our diplomatic corps, but to advance the national interest and benefit fully from these skills, we must also strengthen and promote our close ties to the United States.
 
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A number of years ago, I wrote a book chapter about why independence in Canadian foreign policy was over-rated. You can find it here. That collection of essays served to update and reflect on the late Stephen Clarkson’s edited book on independence in Canadian foreign policy, first published in 1968.
 
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