The Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) has released a second commentary as part of its “Leading a community of democracies in the post-COVID world order” project.
 
(You can find my analysis of the first one here.)
 
This report, written by Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen, is focused on Canadian attitudes towards international organizations.
 
As I noted last time, I agree with Devlen’s suggestion that Canada must work “with other democracies and likeminded states” to promote its national interests.
 
Nonetheless, I am concerned by the way he has interpreted the data the MLI has gathered with reference to the United Nations.
 
The report notes that 54% of Canadians have very positive or moderately positive views of the UN, while 19% feel the opposite.
 
The UN therefore gets a “net impression score” of +35%, which seems relatively good, until you compare it to the scores for NATO (+45%) and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (+51%).
 
Devlen concludes from these data that “Canadians are not undifferentiated multilateralists when it comes to international organizations.” They privilege some over others.
 
But that’s not exactly true. As he notes later in the same report, there is an overwhelming (my word) “partisan divide when it comes to the UN.”
 
Conservatives give the organization a net impression score of just +1%. Liberals give it a +62%.
 
If we assume that Green, NDP, and Bloc Québécois supporters are closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives on this one, a significant majority of Canadians are indeed undifferentiated multilateralists.
 
It’s only a (rather large) group of Conservative partisans who seem to differ.
 
If you believe, like Devlen does, that foreign policy development should be “a two-way street between the public and the government,” it seems to me that these findings will make it difficult for Canada’s international negotiators to build up the reserves of diplomatic capital that have traditionally enabled Ottawa to achieve its worldwide goals.
 
Consider some recent history:
 
The SNC-Lavalin affair’s impact on the Liberals’ 2019 re-election prospects had a notable, even if rarely mentioned, effect on Canada’s international posture.
 
The Globe and Mail broke the story in early 2019 while Ottawa was ramping up its campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC).
 
Once the Liberals dropped in the polls, Canadian officials in New York found it increasingly difficult to secure UNSC votes.
 
The countries we sought support from were not confident that a Conservative government would honour “Liberal” commitments.
 
I recognize that some readers might not care about whether a Canadian UNSC campaign succeeds; regardless, the broader lesson here is important:
 
In diplomacy, a country’s word matters.
 
It is difficult for Ottawa to negotiate effectively on the world stage when our two leading political parties disagree so extensively over the place of the UN within Canada’s multilateral universe.
 
This is not to say that there is no room for partisan differences in foreign policy. Rather, in more ideal circumstances, those differences would be largely confined to execution.
 
We cannot develop a long-term strategic vision of Canada’s place in the world without starting from a shared understanding of the national interest (and, by extension, the UN’s place in it).
 
The MLI’s report should therefore set off alarm bells for all Canadian leaders. The politicization of foreign policy has not left this country in a good place.  
 
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Caroline Dunton is doing some innovative theoretical work on Canada and the UN. Her latest article  can be found here. On Canadian foreign policy more broadly, it’s always worth taking a look at what The Université de Québec à Montréal’s Justin Massie is thinking.
 
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This past week, the Government of Canada released “A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy” - its proposed strategy to combat the negative effects of climate change.
 
Most of the media attention thus far has focused on Ottawa’s pledge to increase the price of carbon from $30 per tonne to $170 per tonne over the next decade.
 
Personally, I find that issue rather tedious. Carbon pricing is a market-based, conservative approach to reducing greenhouse gasses.
 
Conservative partisans have made this argument convincingly in Canada and in the United States.
 
Even the National Post’s John Ivison, who has virtually nothing good to say about the roll-out of the Liberal announcement, agrees “with the carbon pricing model the federal government has chosen, at least as long as the rebates equivalent to the carbon tax continue to make their way back to consumers.”
 
I’m much more interested in a foreign policy implication noted on page 30:
 
“The Government is exploring the potential of border carbon adjustments, and will be discussing this issue with its international partners.”
 
Border carbon adjustments are environmental tariffs by another name.
 
In Ottawa’s own words:
 
“Border carbon adjustments level the playing field across jurisdictions: they put a carbon fee on imports from countries that either do not have carbon pricing or price it too low so that those products face the same costs as those supplied by domestic producers who pay a price on carbon pollution. As such, border carbon adjustments can help maintain competitiveness while also encouraging other countries to step up and take effective action to reduce emissions.”
 
The idea is hardly new.
 
In 1991, the United States Senate considered a proposal to tax imports from countries whose pollution controls were less stringent than America’s.
 
The bill failed, and the World Trade Organization has habitually rejected environmental tariffs as counter to the spirit of globalization.
 
But the WTO is tottering, and it looks like Washington will try again.
 
“Carbon adjustment fees” were mentioned in President-elect Joe Biden’s environmental platform. They are also included in the European Union’s plan to mitigate the effects of climate change.
 
Environmental tariffs resonate because they appeal to populists and pragmatists alike.
 
They are unapologetically protectionist, but they also serve a practical, functional end: they prevent the subsidization of pollution.
 
In this context, the Trudeau government has little choice but to price carbon in Canada aggressively.
 
If it doesn’t, Canadian exports could face new barriers to critical markets.
 
Armed with evidence of an acceptably high carbon price at home, however, Global Affairs Canada will be well-positioned to negotiate a regional, or even global, border carbon adjustment regime with our likeminded allies.
 
The governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario are currently contesting the Trudeau government’s right to tax carbon at the Supreme Court.
 
With Joe Biden about to assume the presidency of the United States, I’m not certain that they should be hoping for a win.
 
***
 
The best summary of recent Canadian thinking on what he calls carbon border adjustments is this prescient article by Adam Radwanski in the Globe and Mail. I’ve noted in a previous post that Radwanski’s reporting on environmental policy has been outstanding.
 
One of the best academics on Canadian environmental policy is Wilfrid Laurier’s Debora VanNijnatten. On energy and the environment, I enjoy the work of the University of Ottawa’s Monica Gattinger. For the Alberta angle, follow Andrew Leach, Trevor Tombe, and Duane Bratt on Twitter, or read their regular public commentaries,
 
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