Foreign Affairs, Version 2.0?

In which Canadian foreign policy gets a review, and not just by the armchair critics and academics populating the country's newspapers.

Between Syria, Iran, Libya, China, and the U.S., the Department of Foreign Affairs has had its hands full with issues ranging from the existential – Tehran's nuclear weapons – to the, well, whatever it is you call it when the United States just decides to tune Canada out of its decision-making process. Indifference, we guess? Hence, the need sometimes for a thorough review of foreign policy, something which has apparently been undertaken by the department and could soon see the light of day. Maclean's Paul Wells thinks such a review is more than overdue, given how often the Harper government has been "blindsided... by the big cruel world." In its first five years in power, the Harper government based its worldview on an abundance of confidence ("We don't review foreign policy; we do it") and not much evidence. But constantly having to play catch-up, such as fretting over whether to support Mubarak or ditch him, or jumping behind Libyan rebels with little background research on just who they are, seems to have changed some minds into thinking that foreign policy requires more than rhetoric aimed at the folks back home. Leaks suggest that the review has focused on bringing the government up to speed on select regions of the world ripe for conflict, in particular Turkey and Indonesia. As Wells notes, the "goal of foreign policy isn’t to avoid surprise, it’s to be a little better-positioned to handle it when it happens." It's a shame that it took the government five years, but it's a welcome review, nonetheless.

Part and parcel to the review are reports suggesting that Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, could soon be permitted to operate abroad, just like a real, grown-up spy agency! J. Michael Cole takes to the Ottawa Citizen to expound just why that ought not to be a priority for the government for a whole slew of reasons. Chief among them, of course, is that the government's supposed to be tightening its belt, not forking over millions more to an agency so that its members can get a better read on China's motivations. Cole also points to the fine Canadian tradition of ignoring or misconstruing intelligence provided by the public service to the government, noting that "the benefits [of an expanded CSIS] would be contingent on politicians' willingness to use it responsibly." If the sum effect of giving CSIS more leeway is to "[politicize] intelligence the way it has done on China, then surely Canadian taxpayers would rather that money be spent elsewhere." Beefing up the government's cyber-security to prevent another one of these uh-ohs would be one such place to start.

And looking to matters a little closer to home, Carleton University's Fen Hampson suggests on iPolitics.ca that the Harper government take a page from Brian Mulroney in dealing with the U.S. during their political "silly season." If the Tories want the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, then they should have followed Mulroney's law of "clean hands". Says Hampson:

Mulroney was only able to get Washington’s attention on acid rain when he convinced its leaders that Canada was cleaning up its own act by getting all seven provinces east of Saskatchewan to reduce their sulphur emissions by 50 percent. Reciprocal action was the foundation for a new agreement.

Mulroney’s law applies to the mess we are in now over so-called “dirty oil.” Canada desperately needs a credible environmental message it can take to Washington. Counter-arguments about “ethical oil” haven’t turned the debate in our favour. If we are going to make any headway, we must change our tune, not tweak it.

We need to show Washington that we are serious about curbing carbon emissions where it counts — in energy consumption — and that we want to do so jointly.

We'll add that doing so would have made it much easier for Canadians to accept the pipeline as well. Instead, the Harper government has handled the Keystone file with about as much grace as an oil-drenched duck trying to escape a tailings pond. Threats to start shipping oil to China instead of the U.S. surely aren't helping matters much either. The Tories would do well to remind themselves which country is the proverbial mouse and which is the elephant in U.S.-Canada relations, and to approach trade talks accordingly.