Could you give us your assessment of the military relationship between Canada and the United States post September 11, 2001? How would you describe it today?

Well, I think we’re entering a period in which some of the traditional assumptions on which Canadian defence and foreign policy were based in the past are now eroding or being questioned by various participants – both in the NGO (non-governmental organization) community as well as within the government circle itself. So there are some glitches, but to be fair to the Chrétien government, some of these (policies) pre–dated his administration, so we’ve had…a period of long co-operation and fairly close and effective co-operation even pre–dating World War II with the Americans, in the defence sphere. And that had its own irritants here and there: the Cuban missile crisis; tepid Canadian support for the Vietnam war (and) reluctance to get involved directly with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the early 1980s under Reagan. And (those irritants) continue with national missile defence today, in which Canada has not yet made a decision on whether we would participate or not. And that brings us right up to the present in which the current administration seems to be trying to walk that traditional very narrow tightrope between too–close an embrace with the Americans, and yet doing our part which we have historically done.

Canada’s military spending has decreased by something like 23 per cent since Prime Minister Chrétien took office back in 1993. Do you think that those days of the so–called “free ride,” whereby Canada was feeling safe under that big American umbrella, are gone and we’ll have to do more? Or is there pressure to do that?

There is pressure, and the American ambassador to Canada – Paul Cellucci – has made it clear that his boss – namely the president – has made it very clear that he wants Canada to spend more on defence. Mind you, that pressure started before September 11. Since September 11, there (has been) an interesting turnaround in that, I think, Americans are more concerned with the border and other security measures, and are downplaying somewhat the military aspect of it. But I think they’re willing to settle for us plugging the so–called “porous border” with the Smart Border measures that we’ve entered into with the United States. And that took some pressure, too. So, Canada–U.S. relations have taken a broader…approach than they have in the more narrow military sense beforehand. So the pressure is there, but we’ve been criticized by our NATO allies – and not just the United States – in the 1970s and after, so we’ve had these periods in which we felt like we could maybe not take a free ride, but perhaps a relatively cheap ride. And I think Canadians by–and–large just don’t feel threatened. And we’ve become a little smug and complacent, perhaps. 9㪣 didn’t seem to shake that up too much, because we have been protected – more or less – by the U.S. security umbrella.

What’s your read coming out of the United States in terms of how skeptical you think organizations like the U.S. Congress are about Canada’s role in protecting North America?

Well, I don’t think the U.S. Congress really knows much about Canada. And many people in Canada say that’s a good thing, because there have been those on the far–left of the political spectrum in Canada – Adrienne Clarkson for one – who have argued for a Canada–U.S. policy. You know, like “we have to get all of our eggs lined up and protect ourselves across the board.” Others have said “well sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie,” because if you get the baleful gaze of the Americans focused too much on what Canada’s doing, they start to link issues, and then we tend to lose. If we keep things separate – trade, economic, financial, immigration, defence issues – all of those separate, we haven’t done too badly in protecting our interests in the past. But yes, there are those who are interested in Canadian affairs – and certainly the border states that have big stakes in border security, and certainly immigration, economic free trade, et cetera – that do know a lot about Canada. And there are Canadian specialists in the United States – Chris Sands and others. They say that, since Chrétien’s come to power, that Canadian–American relations have been cool but correct. And I think that’s a fair assessment.

I’ve read that the view of Canada’s military has changed – this is from the American point of view or at least some points of view in America – from being one of low–capability, low maintenance, to one now of low capability, high maintenance. I’m not sure if that’s in reference to Canada asserting more of a sovereignty message out there.

Yes, there is always a tendency for any prime minister in Canada to play the anti–American card – if you want to put it that way – every so often. And sovereignty seems to become an ill–defined end in itself. I would agree with those that say “if we want a more independent policy, (we) have to be prepared to pay for it.” And so (they say) we have only ourselves to blame if we are increasingly forced by virtue of the lack of funding of our security and other instruments of foreign policy, to go along with the Americans more and more. But you have to differentiate the tension that comes and goes at the political level, with the military service–to–service and person–to–person level. And I think that, although there is some frustration – including that on the part of Canadian military officers, et cetera – with our own…ambivalence about our role in the world – that generally those relations still are excellent. And certainly that is being shown today in Operation Apollo, the ongoing war against terrorism in and around Afghanistan. In the past Canada has commanded other coalition forces – and we did so in the Gulf War – and we were the only other NATO country that had such a major sub–command. That was by virtue of our professionalism and the fact that we did have certain capabilities that made us suitable for that job. And that remains, I think, and we have to keep that in mind.

I think quite a few people feel that our government here in Canada, as we watch the ongoing (activity) in the House of Commons, quite often will publicly object a lot to American initiatives that appear somewhat controversial to Canada. But then they will subsequently fall in line after going through with certain formalities. What’s your impression?

I think that’s the current leadership style. It doesn’t help that we’ve got a leader (who is) concerned with a legacy – if he has one – and that sort of makes it a lame–duck situation in which nobody can really lead. And I think the fact that we do have ambivalence concerning the war on terrorism, and certainly any current action against Iraq currently, reflects the disarray that the Liberals themselves are in over leadership and, of course, within their own party. I think another important factor that we have to take into account though – and we’re seeing that played out today – is that Canada traditionally has tried to have certain counterweights or counter–balances to the inevitable influence, just by proximity, that we have with the Americans. So we’ve had the United Nations forum. (Through that) we could undergo fairly independent actions like peacekeeping, which gave us a distinctive role that was welcomed by most of the superpowers so that they wouldn’t get involved. It’s also been a predominant role and an important role – I wouldn’t say a big one – in NATO. Now those roles are being eroded – both politically, but also because Canada has, I think, virtually pulled out of NATO, and we haven’t thought through what’s going to happen in the UN. We are becoming more isolationist. We used to be one of the major peacekeeping contributors. Now – I just checked – we’re number 31.

And what does that mean, do you think? Does that mean we better be careful with our relations with the Americans and keep them on amicable grounds?

Well again, that’s an idiosyncratic thing. We have a new administration that has its own style, and certainly, they’re used to playing hardball with everyone. And when you play in that game – as one of my colleagues used to say – you’d better prepare to get “beaned” occasionally. And we have been beaned; I think rightly so in many cases. So again, it’s not a question of them pressuring us. They’re just saying, “if you don’t want to play, we’ll get other players.” And where does that leave Canada’s pretensions for being a voice of sanity or…moderation in the world? In the old days we used to have quiet diplomacy as the leitmotif of our foreign policy. We (did) our arguing with the Americans and others behind the scenes and we were valued for the fact that we were trying to get constructive things accomplished. Now it seems that we’re in love with our own words – you know, the Joe Canadian approach to things, that we’re great and everybody wants to listen to us, and we’re better than you – and I think that’s not playing very well. Because, as I said before, across the board we’re shutting down embassies, we have less reputation and presence abroad. Our foreign aid abroad has been cut in half and...our defence spending has gone down quite dramatically over the years. So all of this indicates that we’re interested, it appears, in words and rhetoric – largely self–congratulatory and haranguing the Americans from the sidelines – but we’re not willing to put up the money where our mouth is.

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