|
|
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Alexander - le 12 juin 2003
(en anglais seulement)
Potemkin Canada? Some Remarks on our Roles in Russia and the Wider World
Let me begin by saying what a genuine and frankly unanticipated honour it is to be among tonight’s recipients.
As I am sure you will all agree, there are times both in Ottawa and abroad when each of us doubts the worth or efficacy of what we are doing, when our disconsolation is relieved – if only temporarily – by trinkets of thanks and gratitude.
At other times – indeed, for a great many of us, most of the time – there is no job we would rather do; ours is truly "le plus beau métier qui soit".
But there is no sweeter reward than recognition by one’s peers – these peers.
So my thanks go out to all of you, as well as to PAFSO – for organizing another magical evening, and for making the Canadian foreign service stronger.
My remarks tonight will be about Russia, about Andrew Cohen’s book, and about Canada’s agenda in the world.
Those of us who have worked on or in Russia over the past decade feel privileged. By any standard, a remarkable story has unfolded. A country that was the tap root of communist ideology and rule the world over has graduated to enduring democratic institutions, media freedom, federalism, and a market economy.
The results are striking. Since hitting the wall of financial crisis in autumn 1998, Russian GDP has grown in only four and a half years by 25%. In 2003, Russia will lead G8 economies for growth. Real income for average Russians has doubled. Russia is now a larger energy exporter than Saudi Arabia.
The path was not easy. The breakup of the Soviet Union unleashed a daisy chain of regional conflicts. There was a violent near-coup under Yeltsin in 1993. Duma elections in 1993 and 1995 yielded anti-reform majorities. In late 1994, a terrible, unending war began in Chechnya. Finally, the August 1998 devaluation and default plunged much of Russia back into poverty.
Against this backdrop, two achievements stand out. First, a new private sector has emerged that is outward-looking, innovation-driven and determined to keep up the pace as Russia re-emerges as a major global economic power.
Second, Russia is re-discovering and re-assessing its immense cultural heritage – particularly the legacy previous to 1913, a watershed still known as "the last good year" among historically-minded Russians. The result is a much healthier collective psyche.
In painting, for instance, Russian interest in native pre-revolutionary symbolists and impressionists is at a fever pitch, while Soviet realism and the collaborationist strands of the post-1917 avant-garde remain the preserve of Cold War-obsessed Americans and fellow-travelling Europeans.
In other words, the stage is set for Russia to end its post-Soviet transition and begin a new era of engagement with the world – as a force for export-driven growth, as a cultural powerhouse, and as a bookend for stability in Europe.
This bodes well for the world. But it did not have to be. In ensuring Russia’s transformation remained on track, Canada has played a vital role.
Consider the following examples:
- in 1992, now Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge led a restructuring of post-Soviet sovereign debt within the Paris Club, clearing the way for price liberalization and privatization;
- in 1995, Prime Minister Chrétien hosted the first summit at eight in Halifax, a formula that remains to this day;
- in the ten years to 1997, nearly one hundred mostly Alberta companies injected new technology and oilfield management expertise into the Russian petroleum sector -- a key factor behind Russia’s later economic success;
- in 1999, Canada helped to broker the deal with Russia at Cologne that ended the Kosovo air campaign;
-in 2002, our teams at NATO and HQ played a key role in setting the framework for the NATO-Russia Council;
- and also in 2002, Canada went extra innings at Kananaskis to achieve the Global Partnership - a grand bargain to destroy holdover Cold War WMD stockpiles that President Putin has already adopted as part of his legacy.
Our Prime Ministers and Russia’s Presidents have enjoyed strong rapports that have made these achievements possible. But now everyone is involved: nearly two thirds of the Canadian ministry have visited Russia over the past three years.
The force multipliers for this engagement have been scandal-free CIDA programmes, focussing increasingly on strategic policy advice tailored to Russia’s reform challenges. We have also spread regional ties across the vast Eurasian landmass, especially in its northern tier. Finally, CIC has made regular travel by Russians to Canada a reality for he first time in either country’s history.
Of course, there have been failures and "deferred successes". The war in Chechnya has left more Russian soldiers dead than did ten years of conflict in Afghanistan – a chapter that ended with the total withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Russian energy sector is super-charged, but growth remains sluggish in services and manufacturing, and under-investment is still chronic across the board. Law enforcement and courts leave much to be desired. Organized crime remains far too influential, settling scores and buying bureaucrats with impunity. More crucially, Russia has still not fully come to terms with its own history, and the grievances of its neighbours.
But the overall trend continues to point towards integration. Indeed, for many of us involved with the G8, IMF and World Bank, NATO, Balkans or even Kyoto, Russia has dominated the calculus for a decade. When will they pay? Who will have the final say in Moscow? How much pressure will they exert? When will they ratify?
Andrew Cohen’s book – While Canada Slept – argues that our diplomacy, development and defence have been one long, slow rout since Pearson; that only our success as traders has saved us from international irrelevance.
My question is, "Where has Andrew Cohen been?" He is lucid on two-dimensional facts and figures tracking Canadian engagement abroad. But his book leaves the agenda of the past two decades – which Canada addressed in leading roles – quite literally missing in action.
There is little or nothing here on the G7 and G8. The transformations of Central and Eastern Europe and of Russia and Ukraine are glided over in silence. The expanding diplomacy of the IMF on finance and of the World Bank and UN system on development are absent. The Balkans get short shrift. The theory and practice of the right to protect is glossed over; failed states and the new regional conflicts undersold. Strategic stability and the NPT are omitted, environmental diplomacy skipped. China’s economic story is left out altogether. Terrorism is low-bridged.
These are not minor deficiencies. By leaving out the core of the global agenda over the past two decades, Cohen has excluded the bulk of Canada’s international effort from his selective reckoning.
Yes, most of us in this room would advocate with Cohen an enlarged Canadian commitment to defence and development. But it is difficult to argue that our footprint on the international stage has diminished over the past forty years.
In fact, it has grown immeasurably.
Wrong, Pearson and Robertson presided over a Department of External Affairs that began the Second World War with a handful of posts, and ended it with not very many more. The wartime and post-war stars in this firmament – Massey in London, Ritchie in Bonn, Ignatieff in Belgrade and later New York, Ford in Moscow – shone because they were articulate, well-read and hand-picked. They could and did operate on the basis of personal rapport within tight circles.
But the instruments at their disposal were extremely limited. The impressive military force Canada fielded from 1940 until well into the 19060s was largely tributary to allied strategic command in whose councils our voice was, at best, subdued. Our diplomatic capacity – while highly perspicuous at the top -- was thin in terms of both territory and issues covered, with much greater weight given to views from London and Washington as a consequence. We had little independent capacity to generate and assess intelligence. Our international information and media presence was negligible. Our foreign language capabilities were spotty. Unlike the US and UK, we had little to deploy in the way of technical and reconstruction capacity.
Let’s be realistic: as Pearson cajoled his audience in San Francisco and Escott Reid harangued the allies in Washington – both unquestionably "present at the creation" – External in Ottawa remained in the care of a handful of officers and even fewer support staff who lacked a textured, real-time view of events on the ground in Europe and around the world. We were a mid-size player using scant resources exceptionally well.
In their extent and complexity our international capabilities have today grown out of all proportion with what we enjoyed in the post-war Golden Era. One has only to count the posts, and to consider what each is doing.
So why has there been such an outcry and public debate of late – crystallized in Cohen’s book – over a perceived diminishment in Canada’s role and prestige?
The answer lies in the realm of the economy. If Canada is today a successful trading nation, this is mainly due to our unprecedented integration with the US. We are arguably now more dependent on trade with our southern neighbour than at any time since Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608.
This connection imposes certain considerations upon us.
But it also follows that most of the opportunities for Canada to enlarge its economic reach and international standing now lie elsewhere in the world – beyond this North American island we co-occupy with a great nation.
Andrew Cohen opens his book by comparing Canada’s international relations to a Potemkin village. Apart from building model communities on the Dniepr, Catherine the Great’s favourite ensconced Russian sea power on the Black Sea at Sevastopol and founded what was to become the fastest-growing city in Europe in the 19th century – Odessa. Each anchored Russia’s assaults on the Ottoman Empire in the Transcaucasus and the Balkans, and sealed her emergence as a great power.
To the extent Canada’s Potemkins are now expanding our global reach in the 21st century, Cohen may yet be proven prescient.
The project of building Canada’s international presence is not yet complete. It is useful to have creation myths as compelling as those rooted in the McLaren cemetery in Wakefield. But today’s challenges are to manage a large and multi-faceted organization; to compile and integrate vast amounts of information and commentary; to obtain views from outside the usual ambit of diplomatic work – from financial and commodity markets, from NGOs and civil society, and from conflict or pre-conflict zones, where the barriers of language, religion and ethnicity cannot be permitted to detain or blind us from emerging realities.
The current Governor General observes that Canada has too often been defined by what it is not. We are not a nuclear weapons state. We are not a permanent member of the Security Council. We have never been a colonial power in Africa. We are not the United States.
Now, she says, the time has come to tell the international community what we are. This is not easy. It multiplies responsibilities. It requires harkening to the ancient command to "know thyself".
If we are to meet her challenge, we will need to know Canada and the world better. One who is from Halifax will need to know Toronto; another from Tadoussac should know Yellowknife. We all need to hear who won the Griffin Poetry Prize this year and who is enlivening the contemporary art scene in Winnipeg’s Exchange District. By building the third pillar, we can build Canada itself into something it has not yet been.
I would submit that this is not a matter of choice for us. It is a question of excellence and effectiveness, of being fair to ourselves and our closest neighbour.
Canada has traditionally only fully understood its dependence on the world beyond North America in wartime. Our generation has the tools to show it today.
There are of course sceptics – newspaper editors who dump on foreign reporting; political parties that prevent parliamentarians from travelling.
We can answer them. And in most cases we can convince them Canada’s interest and Pearson’s legacy continue to be served by an activist, global foreign policy.
Thanks again for this award. As I hope is now clear, the real honour for me has been to work with so many of you on issues fundamental to this county’s future.
|
