Michael Byers: What's Canada for? (Interview)
Michael Byers recently released Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? He recently spoke with journalist Am Johal from Vancouver. [Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.]
Johal: I just read your book over the weekend. How did you come up with the idea to write a contemporary response to George Grant's iconic Lament for a Nation?
Byers: The motivation was intensely personal. Like many Canadians, I had internalized George Grant's message: Canada as an independent country had ceased to exist.
Grant based that conclusion on what he called "continental capitalism," the increased integration of the Canadian economy into the U.S. economy, and "global modernism," the overwhelming cultural hegemony of things like Hollywood and Motown. For people of my generation, that thesis and explanation seemed pretty compelling. When I left Canada in 1992, there was no reason to think Grant was wrong. We did a couple of significantly independent things—for instance, we stayed out of the Vietnam War—but the fear of being subsumed by the American project was always prevalent and widely accepted, and certainly felt in the 1988 Free Trade debate.
In your book, you said that you voted for Brian Mulroney in 1984. But you were disenchanted with Canada by 1988 and, certainly, by the time you left the country in 1992. Was it Prime Minister Mulroney's "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" song-and-dance routine with Ronald Reagan, or what was it?
It wasn't just that. It was the end of the Cold War, the seeming triumph of the American model, American economic hegemony. The sense that the future was very much centered around the U.S. People of my generation were looking to the U.S. When I finished law school at McGill, the best students were destined for New York and Washington.
But then, something happened that made me rethink my assumptions. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's decision to stay out of the Iraq War was a direct contradiction of Grant's thesis. At that time, in 2003, George W. Bush was a remarkably popular and powerful president. It seemed inconceivable that Canada could have said no to the U.S. But we did.
There was also the realization that I wanted my kids to grow up somewhere other than Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Trudeau was more independent and Mulroney moved closer to the U.S. In terms of how Canada has engaged as a player in the international system, what do you see as the broad trend which reflects how Canada has misdirected its foreign policy?
Let's look at climate change, the number one challenge facing humanity today. Brian Mulroney did very little, though he recognized it as an issue. Chrétien used Kyoto to burnish his image, but, in fact, did very little. Now Stephen Harper is doing very little and engaging in smoke-and-mirrors with his emissions intensity policy.
With climate change, Canada has consistently refused to lead. We are just coasting along in the slipstream of the United States and the Bush administration. This issue, that lends itself to Canada's multilateral and compassionate place in the world, this opportunity to be a leader, is being lost.
We have been flaunting our legal obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and done very little to develop policies that differ from those of the United States.
Could you speak about Paul Martin's tenure as prime minister and Canada's shift in foreign policy during his tenure, especially related to the Middle East?
Paul Martin was prime minister very briefly and hardly the most decisive of leaders. He continued Canada's foot-dragging on climate change. His tenure also saw a badly thought-through decision to volunteer for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, in Kandahar.
The shift from Canada's traditionally neutral position regarding Israel and its neighbors was altered under Martin's watch.
Overall, there was a lack of independent analysis, though there was a pretty concerted effort to dress it all up as distinctly Canadian and progressive.
The best example of this concerns the celebration of Canada's success in getting the concept of a "Responsibility to Protect" into the 2005 U.N. World Summit Declaration. The only reason we got it there is because we caved: we took the substance out of the concept and agreed that it would act merely as a guideline for U.N. Security Council action. That's not leadership; it was a move designed to impress domestic audiences and nothing else....
Read entire article at http://www.worldpress.org
Johal: I just read your book over the weekend. How did you come up with the idea to write a contemporary response to George Grant's iconic Lament for a Nation?
Byers: The motivation was intensely personal. Like many Canadians, I had internalized George Grant's message: Canada as an independent country had ceased to exist.
Grant based that conclusion on what he called "continental capitalism," the increased integration of the Canadian economy into the U.S. economy, and "global modernism," the overwhelming cultural hegemony of things like Hollywood and Motown. For people of my generation, that thesis and explanation seemed pretty compelling. When I left Canada in 1992, there was no reason to think Grant was wrong. We did a couple of significantly independent things—for instance, we stayed out of the Vietnam War—but the fear of being subsumed by the American project was always prevalent and widely accepted, and certainly felt in the 1988 Free Trade debate.
In your book, you said that you voted for Brian Mulroney in 1984. But you were disenchanted with Canada by 1988 and, certainly, by the time you left the country in 1992. Was it Prime Minister Mulroney's "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" song-and-dance routine with Ronald Reagan, or what was it?
It wasn't just that. It was the end of the Cold War, the seeming triumph of the American model, American economic hegemony. The sense that the future was very much centered around the U.S. People of my generation were looking to the U.S. When I finished law school at McGill, the best students were destined for New York and Washington.
But then, something happened that made me rethink my assumptions. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's decision to stay out of the Iraq War was a direct contradiction of Grant's thesis. At that time, in 2003, George W. Bush was a remarkably popular and powerful president. It seemed inconceivable that Canada could have said no to the U.S. But we did.
There was also the realization that I wanted my kids to grow up somewhere other than Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Trudeau was more independent and Mulroney moved closer to the U.S. In terms of how Canada has engaged as a player in the international system, what do you see as the broad trend which reflects how Canada has misdirected its foreign policy?
Let's look at climate change, the number one challenge facing humanity today. Brian Mulroney did very little, though he recognized it as an issue. Chrétien used Kyoto to burnish his image, but, in fact, did very little. Now Stephen Harper is doing very little and engaging in smoke-and-mirrors with his emissions intensity policy.
With climate change, Canada has consistently refused to lead. We are just coasting along in the slipstream of the United States and the Bush administration. This issue, that lends itself to Canada's multilateral and compassionate place in the world, this opportunity to be a leader, is being lost.
We have been flaunting our legal obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and done very little to develop policies that differ from those of the United States.
Could you speak about Paul Martin's tenure as prime minister and Canada's shift in foreign policy during his tenure, especially related to the Middle East?
Paul Martin was prime minister very briefly and hardly the most decisive of leaders. He continued Canada's foot-dragging on climate change. His tenure also saw a badly thought-through decision to volunteer for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, in Kandahar.
The shift from Canada's traditionally neutral position regarding Israel and its neighbors was altered under Martin's watch.
Overall, there was a lack of independent analysis, though there was a pretty concerted effort to dress it all up as distinctly Canadian and progressive.
The best example of this concerns the celebration of Canada's success in getting the concept of a "Responsibility to Protect" into the 2005 U.N. World Summit Declaration. The only reason we got it there is because we caved: we took the substance out of the concept and agreed that it would act merely as a guideline for U.N. Security Council action. That's not leadership; it was a move designed to impress domestic audiences and nothing else....