Should Canada ban China’s Huawei Technologies Company, the world’s leading telecommunications supplier, from involvement in our fifth generation (5G) wireless networks?
 
The Canadian government has been struggling with this question ever since Beijing passed a new intelligence law in June 2017. Article 7 of the legislation dictates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.”  
 
It appears, then, that Beijing could demand that Huawei spy on Canadians through their own networks.
 
That’s certainly what the Americans think. (They first banned Huawei years ago and have increased their pressure on the company over the last 12 months.)
 
Apparently, so do senior Canadian military officials. Australia has already banned the company, as have Japan and, most recently, the United Kingdom.
 
The British decision was taken largely in response to new sanctions announced by Washington that restrict organizations from exporting key technologies to Huawei, thereby limiting the company’s capacity to do business.
 
Washington has also made it clear that should Huawei become involved in Canada’s emerging 5G network, our access to intelligence within the Five Eyes alliance would no longer be guaranteed.
 
(The Five Eyes include the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The first three countries have banned Huawei; New Zealand has thus far turned down every application from Huawei for involvement in its network.)
 
China’s disappointing international behaviour in recent years has convinced me (and, according to Angus Reid, at least 78% of Canadians) that it is not in Canada’s interests to allow Chinese technology anywhere near our critical infrastructure.
 
And yet, I hope that our allies do not ultimately compel us to officially ban the firm from involvement here.
 
It seems to me that banning Huawei risks bringing a degree of credibility to Beijing that Washington does not intend.
 
It could suggest to some states in the wider international community that if Western firms cannot compete on a level playing field, we resort to brute force to get what we want.
 
Such an aggressive posture creates a narrative of Beijing as victim, which it can use in efforts to promote Huawei as a credible partner elsewhere.
 
Ideally, Canadian telecommunications firms would not need to be directed to stay away from an enterprise that threatens our national security.
 
It would nonetheless be prudent for Ottawa to create criteria for investment here that make it all but impossible for Huawei to put forward a competitive bid on any opportunities to work on 5G networks.
 
We should aim to create incentives for the leadership at Huawei to be resentful of their own political masters. Better that they blame Beijing, and not Washington, for their lack of access to Western markets.
 
I therefore hope that Washington continues to tolerate the Trudeau government’s endless delay in coming to a final decision on a Huawei ban. I’d much prefer to see the company fail to secure contracts in Canada on any merit other than an American edict.
 
***
 
On Canada and China, I enjoy the work of Wendy Dobson and Paul Evans. Both were also delightful to deal with when I edited International Journal.

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Last week, the Trudeau government announced that Bob Rae would be Canada’s next permanent representative to the United Nations.
 
(Disclaimer: Mr. Rae has been a regular guest in my class on Canadian government and strategic decision-making and has said very kind things about my last two books.)
 
Two thoughtful journalists, Paul Wells of Maclean’s and Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star, have come to virtually opposite conclusions about Rae’s appointment. I find it difficult to fully agree with either of them.
 
According to Wells, Rae might be “a gifted deliverer of impromptu remarks,” but he is not a career diplomat, and the posting to New York requires more than just a sharp intellect and superior negotiation skills.
 
The UN is “an infernally complex place. The rule book is as thick as the Manhattan phone directory, and much depends on whom you know.”
 
Perhaps it might have been prudent for the Liberals to choose from among the many seasoned professionals at Global Affairs Canada for this particular job.
 
In contrast, Regg Cohn draws attention to Rae’s time as Ontario’s 21st premier, suggesting that “There is no better preparation for the pinstripes brigade in the puffed up diplomatic corps than to run a province.”
 
Add to that his international experience, including his recent work on behalf of the Trudeau government looking into the plight of the Rohingya, and Regg Cohn can’t imagine a better choice.
 
I agree with Wells that Rae lacks UN experience, and my own research confirms that navigating the UN’s written and unwritten rules of behaviour takes time for even the best-prepared diplomat.
 
But I also concur with Regg Cohn’s suggestion that, in temperament and intellect, Rae will be an excellent fit in New York.
 
My problem with both analyses is that we don’t really know what Mr. Trudeau wants from his new UN representative. Without that understanding, I don’t think it’s possible to evaluate the quality of the appointment.
 
In recent history, there have been at least four kinds of successful Canadian permanent representatives in New York.
 
Stephen Lewis was an NDP political activist, lacking in formal diplomatic experience.
 
But his Progressive Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, was looking for someone with an edge, particularly when it came to denouncing apartheid in South Africa. He got exactly that.
 
Yves Fortier, one of Mulroney’s closest friends and business associates, succeeded Lewis.
 
He, too, had no formal background at the UN, although he was a world-renowned arbitrator.
 
In Fortier, Mulroney sought someone he could trust implicitly while Canada was on the UN Security Council.
 
To compensate for Fortier’s lack of UN experience, Philippe Kirsch, one of Canada’s foremost diplomats, stayed on in New York as deputy permanent representative and took responsibility for the operational management of the delegation.
 
Fortier had the humility to defer to Kirsch on issues of procedure and protocol, and was generally a pleasure to work for. Moreover, his close relationship with the prime minister produced instant credibility at the negotiating table. No career diplomat I have spoken to resented his presence.
 
Fortier was followed by Louise Fréchette, an official with 21 years’ experience, including a number as part of Canada’s UN delegation in Geneva.
 
Fréchette was so well-regarded across New York that she later served eight years as the UN’s first deputy secretary-general.
 
Finally, in 2011, the Harper government appointed Guillermo Rishchynski Canada’s UN ambassador.
 
Rishchynski used the mediation skills he had developed over nearly 30 years as a foreign service officer to keep the low profile that his prime minister expected of him without compromising Canadian national interests.
 
That most readers won’t recognize his name suggests that he, too, succeeded.
 
Bob Rae has Lewis’ ability to effect change, Fortier’s gravitas, and the necessary deference to the diplomatic establishment.
 
He lacks Fréchette’s UN experience, and is unlikely to keep his head down.
 
He could be an excellent choice if his skill-set matches the policy objectives that the Trudeau government has presumably established for his time in New York.
 
But if Rae was selected for political purposes – as a fig leaf to the Liberal old guard, for example – the decision to pass over a number of eminently qualified career public servants is harder to justify, and morale at Global Affairs Canada is likely to suffer as a result.
 
***
 
For another perspective on this issue, take a look at what Susan Delacourt has written. And if you’d like to delve more deeply into the history of Canadian diplomacy, consider just about anything published by the late Greg Donaghy. Greg was an outstanding scholar whose kindness and generosity will be deeply missed across Canada’s academic and professional diplomatic community.
 
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Ever since Canada lost its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, an overwhelming number of Canadian analysts have been calling for a comprehensive foreign policy review (see also here and here and here).
 
According to the University of Calgary’s Jean-Christophe Boucher, some are even advocating a Royal Commission.
 
I was not comfortable when Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne proposed to “launch a white paper on Canada’s feminist foreign policy” four months ago.
 
And while I don’t agree that Canada’s Security Council election defeat represents the global rejection of Canadian foreign policy that critics have made it out to be, even if it does, I still wouldn't think that the time was right for a foreign policy review.
 
Historically, foreign policy reviews conducted under minority governments have sputtered.
 
Prime Minister Joe Clark tried one in 1979, but it was cancelled when his government fell unexpectedly a couple of months later.
 
Prime Minister Paul Martin tried in 2005. His review made it to press, only to be archived a few months later when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took power.
 
It’s also an election year in the United States, and Canada’s close ties to the US – economically, militarily, historically, and geographically – mean that the policy of the next administration will have a critical impact on Ottawa’s international realm.
 
To conduct a foreign policy review before we are certain of who will sit in the White House and control the Senate next year seems imprudent.
 
These reasons don’t begin to take into account the logistics of launching a review in the midst of Global Affairs Canada's efforts to deal with the impact of a pandemic while working remotely.
 
Nor do they consider how Canadians will pay for the findings of the review. (These sorts of exercises always conclude that Canada should do more in the world.)
 
None of this means that Canadian foreign policy is in a good place.
 
Critics are correct in suggesting that Ottawa’s searing rhetoric has failed to align with its more guarded international commitments.
 
But doing something is not the only way to address this discrepancy. For now, the best solution might be to simply cut down on the sloganeering.
 
Our government could do worse than dispensing with all of its talk of Canadian global leadership; avoiding the further politicization of foreign policy through its deliberate and unhelpful branding efforts; and empowering the outstanding people at Global Affairs Canada and in other departments with international responsibilities to promote and defend Canadian national interests.
 
We can start thinking more seriously about the future of Canadian foreign policy on November 4th, 2020. But I still don’t see the value of undertaking a formal review until one of our political parties commands a majority in the House of Commons.
 
***
 
If you’re interested in learning more about Canadian foreign policy reviews, take a look at the work of David Malone, William Hogg, John Noble, and Randolph Mank. I wrote something about the origins of Canada’s feminist foreign policy here, but for a real expert’s take, check out the work of Rebecca Tiessen.

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The excellent public policy magazine, Policy Options, graciously published my response to Canada's defeat in its bid for a two-year seat on the UN Security Council. I cannot praise the editorial team, including Jennifer Ditchburn and Evangeline Sadler, enough for the way they improved my rushed first draft. You can find the article here.

 Last week, Peter Donolo, a long-time Liberal political strategist, wrote a scathing critique of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s response to a media query about US President Donald Trump’s tasteless reaction to the violent death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
 
Given the broad consensus among Canadians that the president’s conduct has been contemptible, Donolo questioned the merits of Trudeau’s 21-second pause, which was followed by a refusal to call out Trump directly. 
 
Donolo justified his condemnation by drawing heavily from Trudeau’s own words.
 
The prime minister claimed that his job was (1) “to stand up for our interests,” and (2) “to stand up for our values.”
 
And while it was certainly not in Canada’s interests to risk the president’s wrath by scorning him publicly, Donolo wondered whether the PM’s refusal to criticize Trump personally meant that he had failed on the second front.
 
“If we only find our voice when there is no risk,” he concluded, “then we are not truly sovereign.”
 
I don’t agree with Donolo - conscious decisions not to act are just as much acts of a soveign state as are actions themselves - but by invoking the idea that the role of the prime minister is to stand up for the values of Canadians, Trudeau brought this criticism upon himself. (The unnecessarily dramatic 21-second pause didn’t help, either.)
 
In 2017, then Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland articulated a vision for Canada on the world stage that, presumably, also represented the views of our prime minister:
 
“Now, it is clearly not our role to impose our values around the world,” she said. “No one appointed us the world’s policeman.”
 
Admittedly, Freeland went on to suggest that it was the government’s duty “to clearly stand for these rights both in Canada and abroad,” but how she explained standing for, rather than Trudeau’s standing up for, is critical:
 
“It is our role,” she said, “to set a standard for how states should treat women, gays and lesbians, transgendered people, racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious minorities, and Indigenous people.”
 
We stand, in short, by our actions, and those actions must begin at home.
 
As the prime minister is well-aware, when it comes to racial inequality, Canadians have little to brag about.
 
In that context, Trudeau was right not to take the media’s bait and wax smugly about the US president.
 
Moreover, those who support fundamental change in America should be grateful that he held his tongue.
 
At present, Republicans are divided over President Trump’s conduct. Those internal divisions are part of what is enabling what appears to be a normative shift in US society.
 
Criticism of the president by a Canadian prime minister (who cannot recall how many times he has dressed up in blackface) might well have spurred Republican Party members to reunite in opposition to foreign meddling in their country’s internal affairs.
 
The White House communications team could have used Trudeau to distract the public from the situation on America’s streets.
 
In sum, it is hard to imagine a worse time for self-righteous indignation in Canadian foreign policy.

​The best response to President Trump is to get our own house in order.
 
***
Brian Bow continues to do excellent research into Canada-US relations. On race, why not take a look at the work of Laura Madokoro.
 
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This past Saturday, thousands of Torontonians flocked to Trinity Bellwoods Park, a delightful, family-friendly space not too far from the lakeshore.

Photos taken that afternoon, showing over 10,000 Canadians virtually on top of one another, reflect a population seemingly oblivious to the pandemic surrounding them.

Toronto’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, condemned the behaviour of the revellers as “selfish and dangerous.”

A city spokesperson promised that by-law officials would be out in full-force the following day. (They were.)

In the meantime, the number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario is spiking, with Toronto leading the way.

How could this happen?

I suspect that part of the problem was caused by a group of disgruntled, perhaps entitled, Torontonians using an example set for them by some of our political leaders as justification to overlook municipal and provincial rules around physical distancing.

In early April, we learned that PM Justin Trudeau had visited his family at the Prime Minister’s summer residence at Harrington Lake barely hours after he had called on the rest of us to stay home for the weekend.

We never received a convincing explanation as to why seemed to be one set of rules for most Canadians and another for the prime minister and his family.

That same weekend, after urging Ontarians not to visit their cottages, Premier Doug Ford drove up to his own summer residence to “check on the plumbing.”

Rather than apologizing, Ford attempted to rationalize his trip. He drove alone; he didn’t stop along the way; he didn’t visit anyone; and he was genuinely worried about a flood.

Why someone from the area could not have checked the cottage on his behalf was never made clear.

Strike three came on Mother’s Day.

While Ontario public health officials continued to order provincial residents to stay away from anyone who lived outside of their household, Ford invited his two daughters who do not live with him to visit the family home for some quality time.

The premier’s justification this time was that we should all use our own best judgment in interpreting the advice from Public Health.

When leaders in other countries have behaved similarly, some have been forced to resign.

In Canada, there were no consequences for Trudeau, nor have there been any for Ford, now a repeat offender.

This context does not excuse Torontonians’ shoddy behaviour at Trinity Bellwoods. They put the health of their fellow residents at increased risk and might well have extended the length of our lockdown.

It might, however, explain how such a situation could occur, and suggests that it could happen again.

Both the prime minister and the Ontario premier have managed elements of the Canadian response to COVID-19 admirably.

But when it comes to consistently matching their words with their actions, they have made significant mistakes.

It seems to me that, at least in Toronto, these errors have undermined the critical message that our public health officials have been sending.

If Trudeau and Ford want to restore Torontonians’ commitment to flattening the curve, they should start by following Toronto Mayor John Tory's lead, and offering all Canadians a sincere apology.

***

Like many Canadians, I have been impressed by the work of Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer, throughout the pandemic. Her calm, thoughtful presence has been reassuring. Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s work as the chief medical officer of health in Alberta has been equally inspiring.

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Last week, Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, spoke to The Hill Times about the “massive and complicated repatriation effort,” undertaken by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) in response to the current pandemic.

Oliphant noted that the personal relationships that Minister Champagne had established with his ministerial counterpart and officials in Morocco during a visit in January was critical to GAC’s ability to help more than 1,000 Canadians stranded there get home.

According to Oliphant, his own and Prime Minister Trudeau’s personal visits to Ethiopia earlier this year were similarly critical to GAC’s successful efforts to arrange flights out of Johannesburg and Cape Town.

It's worth recalling that those visits to Africa were initially controversial. Critics suggested that the Trudeau government was engaged in a vanity project to secure a seat on the UN Security Council.

In this context, Oliphant’s revelations illustrate not just the importance of effective diplomacy, but also the challenge of making that importance clear to the Canadian public.

Particularly in times of crisis, international relations is all about personal relationships. Our diplomats use the capital they have accumulated through their relationship-building efforts to advance and defend the national interest.

Put another way, world leaders don’t have a lot of time for favours during a pandemic. If you need something from them, and they don’t already know you, it’s probably too late.

The problem when it comes to building public support for diplomacy is that best diplomatic practices are a lot like insurance: the costs (embassies, receptions, official visits) are clear immediately, but the benefits are only incurred later, and typically when the average Canadian is too preoccupied to appreciate the work that was necessary to produce them.

To make matters worse, contemporary populist movements have promoted a disdain for elites and their expertise. Many Canadians have been conditioned to question the purpose and value of our diplomats and their efforts.

Nonetheless, diplomacy has proven time and again that it can save lives.

When we face the financial reckoning that is sure to arise in Ottawa when this pandemic is finally over, let’s hope that the critical work of Global Affairs Canada in getting so many stranded Canadians home is not forgotten.

***

The most convincing essay I’ve read on the value of diplomacy was written by the novelist and humourist, Sondra Gotlieb, as a chapter in Diplomacy in the Digital Age, a quasi-academic collection dedicated to her now late husband Allan, one of Canada’s foremost 20th century diplomats.

If you do take a look at the book, be sure to also check out “Professionals and amateurs in the diplomacy of the age of information,” by one of our finest scholars, Denis Stairs.

And a shout-out to the University of Toronto’s Brendan Kelly. His book, The Good Fight: Marcel Cadieux and Canadian Diplomacy was just awarded the 2020 Dafoe Prize, recognizing “the best book on Canada, Canadians, and/or Canada’s place in the world.”

Cadieux was another one of Canada’s great diplomats. His own book, The Canadian Diplomat, is another tremendous resource.

If those books aren’t enough, you can find some of mine here, here, or here.
 
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A couple of weeks ago, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released an extensive data set that tracks the contributions of member countries to official development assistance (ODA) in 2019.
 
Here is what the University of Ottawa’s Stephen Brown – one our leading experts on ODA – said about Canada’s numbers through a blog for the McLeod Group (later reproduced by the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies):
 
“Despite talking a good game when it comes to foreign aid … it is clear that Canada is refusing to contribute its fair share of development assistance.” 
 
Brown goes on to declare that “under the Trudeau government, Canada is less generous than under Harper.” Put another way, even though the Liberals have actually increased the international assistance budget since 2015, ODA as a percentage of gross national income has dropped from an average of 0.30% under the Conservatives to 0.27% in 2019.
 
I agree with this element of Brown’s analysis.
 
Canada has the capacity to contribute more to international assistance. Moreover, investing extensively in foreign aid is consistent with the national interest.
 
Canada is a trading nation. It is in our interest to increase the number of prospective consumers of Canadians goods and services around the world by helping struggling members of the international community pull themselves out of poverty.
 
Canada is also an aging nation, reliant on a steady stream of educated immigrants to maintain our economic prosperity. Supporting poverty alleviation around the world is a logical component of any proactive immigration strategy.

Later in the same blog, when Brown points out that “Norway and Ireland, Canada’s ‘rivals’ for a seat on the UN Security Council … are providing foreign aid equivalent to 1.02% and 0.31% of GNI, easily outshining Canada,” he appears to imply that Canada’s efforts to secure a seat on the UN Security Council this summer could be compromised by its lack of generosity relative to Norway and Ireland.

That contention, which has been made more explicitly by others, is less convincing.
 
Critics of Canadian ODA policy often fail to note that the same OECD data also show that, on a grant equivalent basis, Canada provided more aid than either of its Security Council competitors in 2019.
 
Some will respond that since the Canadian economy is much larger than Norway’s, and Ireland’s, the international community could punish Ottawa for being miserly.
 
But for the recipients of development assistance, it’s the total dollar amount that counts.
 
If I’m looking for seed money to start a new business, I’ll take $30,000 from a less generous Canada over $25,000 from a more generous Norway every time.
 
We therefore shouldn’t expect Canada’s disappointing record in international assistance to have any real effect on its campaign for a Security Council seat.
 
In fact, with more than four times Ireland’s development budget, Ottawa will be in a favourable position if the election comes down to using aid to sway a country’s vote.
 
***
 
If you’d like to read more about ODA, especially in Africa, take a look at the work of my fellow Trent alum, David Black. I also recommend anything that Shannon Kindornay has written. She is currently a senior analyst at the Canadian International Development Platform, a critical source for any student of Canadian foreign and public policy. 

If you need something longer to read while sheltering from the virus at home, you can find some my books here, here, or here.
 
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Last week, an open letter signed by over 100 academic experts, political represenatives, and members of the non-governmental community – including at least one former Liberal member of Parliament and a number of sitting Conservatives – declared that:

“The roots of the pandemic are in a cover-up by CCP authorities in Wuhan, Hubei province.”

Since then, the Canadian government has faced questions over its unwillingness to use similar language.

I am largely, even if not entirely, sympathetic to the signatories’ conclusion. (The failure of much of the international community to take public health security seriously over the last number of decades is also a real problem.) Moreover, credible sources confirm a number of their specific accusations.

But the implication that Ottawa should be speaking out loudly at this point is puzzling.

The Toronto Star’s Martin Regg Cohn, with whom I often agree, thinks it’s intolerable that we are “behaving like boy scouts at the multilateral level — deferring to diplomacy and authority.” The thoughtful former diplomat David Mulroney has said of the government: “I think they are genuinely afraid of China, and therefore flattery is their default position.”

It seems to me that Canada’s elected political representatives should be afraid right now, very afraid.

Two innocent Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, have been unfairly detained in a Chinese prison for over a year in retaliation for Ottawa’s legitimate arrest of Huwaei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in response to an American extradition request. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the two Michaels – who were never treated humanely to begin with – have been denied even their monthly consular visit.

So the Chinese government has a propensity for retaliation, and innocent Canadians are in the direct line of fire.

Consider also, as the prime minister has hinted, that Ottawa is sourcing some of the medical supplies so crucial to its management of the pandemic from China. Again, it makes good sense right now to avoid anything that might provoke a retaliatory response.

Third, Beijing's mismanagement of this crisis is already clear. Its influence in the World Health Organization is being undermined; its influence in Africa is suffering as well.

Regg Cohn suggests that Canada can act indirectly by supporting Taiwan’s entry into the World Health Organization. I don’t disagree, so long as such advocacy is part of a broad-based coalition that immunizes the Michaels from direct blow-back.

Indeed, Ottawa has already taken the prudent position of demanding a full investigation of the international community’s response to the outbreak of COVID-19 once the pandemic is under control.

For now, however, it might also consider the following:

• Launch a strategy to develop the domestic capacity to source materials critical to national security (including public health security) here at home, if not with our most trusted NATO allies. The strategy can build on the Canada-United States Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration signed this past January.

• Strongly encourage Bell and Telus to voluntarily end their plans to build their 5G networks with the Chinese firm Huawei. Bell and Telus claim that the cost of rejecting Huawei would be immense, but the current economic crisis provides an opening for Ottawa to offer funding to mitigate the impact. If no Canadian businesses are willing to work with Huawei, there will be no need to invite the retaliation that will inevitably come from banning the company altogether.
  

I understand that some Canadians interpret prudence as cowardice. And I suspect that some of our allies would appreciate greater boldness as well.

But the government of the day must defend and protect its citizens, and for now that means minimizing any further harm to the two Michaels, and to other Canadians who currently depend on Chinese benevolence.

***
On Canada and China, I enjoy reading Wendy Dobson and Paul Evans. Both are also true professionals. Dobson’s most recent book, Living with China: A Middle Power Finds its Way, is a finalist for this year’s Donner Prize.

If you need something longer to read while sheltering from the virus at home, you can find some my books here, here, or here.
 
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Last week, the National Post’s editorial board released a fascinating article: “If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, it’s that Canada needs to be more self-sufficient.”
 
The essay calls into question the Post’s long-time promotion of free markets and open trade. Over the next few weeks, articles in the paper will “ask tough questions about how our desire for more and freer trade must be balanced against our responsibility to always ensure that Canada can look after Canadians.”
 
Inasmuch as proponents of protectionist initiatives like supply management and Canada's Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy might say ‘I told you so,’ the Post’s position is hardly a turn to the political left.
 
Looked upon favourably, it is a prudent re-imagination of the national interest. More critically, it is also a surrender to those who seek an end to the liberal democratic world order that has dominated the international system since the end of the Second World War.
 
That order, anchored by the United Nations and its affiliated organizations and agencies, has been held together by two complementary forces: first, the immunity of the great powers (the United States, the Soviet Union / now Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France) from its reach; and second, the unspoken commitment of the United States to defend its integrity (presumably on their behalf).
 
There are plenty of flaws within this framework: for instance, it ignores the wants and needs of the Global South. Nonetheless, the trade-off has meant that in times of existential emergencies, Canada's only critical ally in terms of security, economic prosperity, and just about everything else could be counted on to engage.
 
The authors at the Post seem to be implying that Washington has abandoned its preserver role for good. All Canada can do now is look out for itself.
 
Perhaps they’re right. Arguments that the current US administration is less an aberration than representative of an ongoing American withdrawal from global leadership abound.
 
But it seems to me that it’s too soon to give up.

I can’t disagree with the argument that Ottawa should think seriously about “how much of our safety should be kept in Canadian hands.”
 
But the best future for Canada still includes renewed American leadership within the liberal democratic system that it did so much to create.

Now is not the time to give up on the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the G20, and the other international institutions that have served Canadian interests so well over the last 75 years.

If we do, they are even more likely to be undermined, if not replaced. And whatever comes next will be far worse than what we have now.

***
 
On international organizations, I like the work of David Bosco. You can find some of his writing here. On the future of the Canadian economy, the work of Sean Speer (a Conservative) and Robert Asselin (a Liberal) is getting a lot of good press. You can find some of it here. And if you’re on Twitter and are looking for a combination of thoughtful commentary, wit, and good humour, why not follow @loleen_berdahl, a true role model for Canadian academics.
 
If you need something longer to read while sheltering from the virus at home, you can find some my books here, here, or here.
 
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