Can Canada Become a Great Power?

Can Canada become a great power? Whether Canadians want to be a great power or not is another question, but does this nation have the attributes and will to become a key player in the “great game” of nations?

Realistically, we suffer from some serious drawbacks. There are only about 34 million Canadians in a world where the great nation-states, such as China, Russia or the United States, have far greater numbers. On the other hand, nations such as Britain, France and Germany, within living memory, were great powers with populations well below 100 million. Still, there can be no doubt that, as in other areas, size matters.

China, Russia and the U.S. are vast territories, much like Canada. The former European great powers were relatively small in area. There can be little doubt, however, that geography is a Canadian weakness. With a small population, strung for several thousand kilometres along the border with the United States, with muskeg and mountains dividing us, no one can doubt the problems of distance.

Then, while most great powers have restive populations within their boundaries, Canada has Quebec. This nation's federal system has allowed Quebeckers to bargain skillfully for increased autonomy over the decades, and hesitant national political leadership has permitted this. And Quebeckers historically have taken very different attitudes from other Canadians to overseas military ventures. The present straitened conditions of the Canadian Forces, the tiny numbers in uniform, inevitably also limit what Canada could do, even if the nation wanted more.

That matters because great powers see themselves as mission-oriented. Sometimes, they play imperialist as Britain and France did. Sometimes, they seek global domination as Germany and the Soviet Union did. Sometimes, they aim to spread their capitalist/democratic vision of the world, as Washington does. But they all had or have a vision of the world they want. Canadians can't even agree on the kind of nation – or deux nations – that they desire. It's difficult to tell the world how to act in such circumstances, and Canadian moralizing that “the world needs more Canada” can only be a poor substitute.