There's been much recent criticism of the Harper government's foreign policy. This week in The Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson rained on its shifting China stance and former official Gar Pardy blamed it for failing citizens in trouble abroad. Yesterday came news of another Canadian left to languish in Kenya. I don't mean to pile on but rather to explore the cause.
It seems to me this kind of erratic, distasteful foreign policy is what you get when you have an ideological government in a minority situation. These people got into politics largely due to a right-wing belief system but lack the majority to implement it. Stephen Harper, who early in his career railed against special treatment for Quebec, was forced to recognize Quebeckers as a “nation.” He is a devout free marketer who had to run up deficits and launch stimulus programs. It can't have been easy, turning into a Keynesian.
So foreign policy becomes an outlet where you try to recoup a bit of ideological integrity. It is where Stephen can try to be Stephen. Early on, he attempted it with China, saying he wouldn't “sell out important Canadian values” for the “almighty dollar.” That hard line dissolved due to the economic clout China now has. But the quest continued.
Along comes an anti-democratic military coup in Honduras last June. Every country in the hemisphere, including the United States, denounces it, calls for the return of elected president Manuel Zelaya and pulls some aid funding – except us. We are laggard and mealy-mouthed, and maintain military aid. It's true Canada has sweatshop and mining operations there, which didn't much like Mr. Zelaya's 60-per-cent hike to the minimum wage, but that applied to U.S. interests too, and doesn't account for our uniquely regressive behaviour.
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