Harper government comes under fire from former PM Joe Clark

Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Canada is in danger of losing its long-cultivated ability to punch above its weight-class on the world stage because of the Harper government’s narrow view of foreign policy, according to former prime minister Joe Clark.

Clark was on campus Monday to meet with University officials and others to discuss a proposal for establishing a conference on hemispheric energy. However, the former leader of the now-defunct Progressive Conservative Party of Canada also approached the political science department about offering his views on Canada’s foreign policy.

According to Clark—who held a number of portfolios in the 1980sincluding minister of foreign affairs for over six years under Brian Mulroney— Canada’s foreign policy has been a balanced approach that has provided Canada with its influence on the international stage.

“When Canada has been most effective internationally, it has been because we pursued two priorities at the same time,” Clark said. “We worked hard on our friendship with the United States, and we worked hard on an independent and innovative role in the wider world. Those are not opposite positions. They are the two sides of the Canadian coin and both must be given attention or we debase our currency.”

Among the successes that Clark, a former U of A graduate, counts as having flowed from this policy is the free trade agreement that he helped negotiate with the United States, the agreement on acid rain and Canada’s initial inclusion in the G7.

Clark also believes that this balanced approach has provided Canada with influence and clout in Washington. He said that this has allowed the two countries to work together on issues even when there’s disagreement, and permits Canada to work multilaterally or in places around the world where American participation would cause resentment.

However, according to Clark, the Harper government has discarded this approach to foreign policy, one that had been the basis of the Canadian style for almost 60 years. In its place, Clark sees a strategy that’s almost exclusively focused on good relations with the Americans. He noted that 16 separate members of the Harper Cabinet visited the US in 2006, while during the same period only two ministers went to Africa, none to the Middle East, none to China, one to Haiti and none to South America.

“With the Harper government, there is a new, more deliberate insularity [in foreign policy] with the singular exception of our military engagement in Afghanistan,” Clark said. “I believe that Mr Harper and his colleagues are moving deliberately away from central elements of the foreign policy that has been a key strength for Canada under both Progressive Conservative and Liberal administrations.

“Mr Harper’s party, [formerly] known as the Reform Party, began self-consciously as a protest movement and it has no inherited tradition in international affairs … moreover, their method is wedge politics, so there is scant domestic experience with brokering and embracing contesting points of view,” Clark added. “These significant departures from Canada’s traditional foreign policy should not be considered as rookie mistakes, but as deliberate policy.”

In addition to expressing concern over the singular focus on the US, Clark said there are three other areas of Canada’s new foreign policy approach that he believes present a troubling departure from Canadian traditions. These include what he perceives as an absence of any evident priorities in dealing with the developing world, the erosion of Canada’s professional Foreign Service, and the decline of the country’s influence and relations with the People’s Republic of China.

“The Harper government has embraced a pre-Nixonian policy towards China, deliberately distancing Canada from the emerging mega-power, thereby limiting our ability to affect China’s performance on human rights or on other issues,” Clark said.

In addition to outlining his serious views on the waning of Canada’s foreign policy, the former two-time leader of the Progressive Conservative party also kept the crowd of students and professors entertained.

“Today, as you may be aware was budget day. I try to miss budgets when I can; I had an unfortunate experience with one once,” Clark quipped.