Canada faces new world order as America reduces leadership role, says Chrystia Freeland
In what was billed as a major speech on Canada’s foreign policy priorities, the Foreign Affairs minister sketched out the challenges the country faces today and the role it aspires to play.

thestar.com
By BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH
June 6, 2017

Canada is preparing to boost its military spending and is reaffirming its commitments to international trade and the fight against climate change as its girds for a new world order where many Americans want to “shrug off the burden of world leadership,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says.

In what was billed as a major speech on Canada’s foreign policy priorities, Freeland sketched out the challenges the country faces today - climate change, Daesh extremists, Russian aggression - and the prospect that the United States may no longer play the active role it has in the past on the world stage.

Speaking in the Commons, she acknowledged the dramatic changes unfolding in Washington under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pulled out of a global climate change pact, assailed member nations in the NATO alliance for not paying their fair share and talked up protectionist trade barriers.

While Freeland called the United States the “indispensable nation” in the postwar world order, she suggested that those times may be coming to an end.

“It would be naive or hypocritical to claim . . . that all Americans today agree. Indeed, many of the voters in last year’s presidential election cast their ballots, animated in part by a desire to shrug off the burden of world leadership. To say this is not controversial: it is simply a fact,” Freeland said.

“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course. For Canada that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order.”

For Canada, that means more money for the military to better equip it to deal with global threats, she said.

“To put it plainly: Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power. Force is of course always a last resort. But the principled use of force, together with our allies and governed by international law, is part of our history and must be part of our future,” she said.

Freeland pledged a “substantial” investment in the military “to not only redress years of neglect and underfunding, but also to place the Canadian Armed Forces on a new footing - with the equipment, training, resources and consistent, predictable financing.”

The Liberal government is expected to reveal more on that front Wednesday when it releases its defence policy review, a document that will detail military policy and funding for the coming years.

Freeland acknowledged that having the U.S. as a neighbour has brought benefits but she cautioned that Canada can’t afford to take a “free ride” on American military might.

“To rely solely on the U.S. security umbrella would make us a client state,” she said, adding that such a dependence “would not be in Canada’s interest.”

Academic Stephanie Carvin said the speech spells out Canada’s vision in what she calls a “post-American” world, though with few details of how that vision will become a reality.

“This is the first articulation of where Canada is going to go in a world where Trump is president of the United States,” said Carvin, an assistant professor of international affairs at Carleton University.

“We’re basically preparing for a post-American world, which is pretty astonishing . . . a world where the United States is no longer the global leader.

“How do you now deal with an American that no longer has bipartisan consensus, no longer wants to bear the cost of leadership, nor wants to be basically a moral leader at all.”

Canada is not the first to raise the prospect of Washington exiting the world stage. German Chancellor Angela Merkel left a G7 summit meeting that included Trump with the pointed declaration that saying that Europe “really must take our fate into our own hands.”

Trump was never mentioned by name in Freeland’s speech. But in reaffirming Canada’s position on a number of global issues, Freeland made plain the gulf that exists between Ottawa and the White House.

Faced with a president who believes that trade has gutted American jobs, Freeland responded that international trade is the “wrong target.”

“Let’s be clear on this point: it is wrong to view the woes of our middle class as the result of fiendish behaviour by foreigners,” she said.

She dismissed the idea of a “Canada first” foreign policy - in contrast to Trump’s American first policies - declaring that such an approach would be “wrong.”

Instead, she underscored the need for the global co-operation, stressing that no one nation can go it alone to confront today’s challenges.

For Canada, that means “robustly” supporting what Freeland called the rules-based international order and institutions such as the G7, NATO and the UN.

In those forums, Canada will promote Canadian values that include feminism, and the promotion of the rights of women and girls, Freeland said.

“Women’s rights are human rights. That includes sexual reproductive rights and the right to safe and accessible abortions. These rights are at the core of our foreign policy,” she said.

In the days ahead, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau will unveil a “feminist international assistance policy” that will target women’s rights and gender equality,” Freeland said.

“We will put Canada at the forefront of this global effort.”

She said Canada has a “huge interest in an international order based on rules.

“The single most important pillar of this, which emerged following the carnage of the First and Second World Wars, is the sanctity of borders. And that principle, today, is under siege,” she said.

That’s why countries rallied behind Ukraine, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and why the global community has joined in the fight against Daesh in Syria and Iraq, she said.

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Another pillar of Canada’s foreign policy will be trade, starting with the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and renewed efforts to diversify trade worldwide,” she said.

“We will actively seek new trade agreements that further Canadian economic interests and that reflect our values,’ Freeland said.

She touted the benefits of trade, saying barriers to global commerce in the 1930s proved costly.

“Rising trade barriers hurt the people they are intended to help. They curb growth, stifle