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rfmcdonaldVeteran Canadian political journalist Jeffrey Simpson argues that, as other national economies surpass Canada's and new international forums replace the old, Canada's influence in the world is set to decline.
Canada, amusingly enough, does easily qualify for membership in the G-20, with a GDP that, measured using purchasing power parity or international exchange rates, is very nearly the size of Russia's or Brazil's or South Korea's, although a similarly-sized Spain doesn't qualify and Argentina and South Africa seem to have been included at least as much of geographical balance as for anything else. How is Canada dealing with this downgrading, this relegation to the second tier of an organization that, well, Canada supported?
The Harper government's small-minded and unimaginative, who's surprised? Simpson's being excessively optimistic about the federal government's ability to change things. This pompous 2006 Conrad Black article aside, Canadians have tended to think of their nation as a middle power, a country of some influence that's ultimately dependent on an external power and alliance system (the British Empire then Commonwealth, the United States and NATO). Wikipedia's quote of one definition of the middle power is as good as any.
In the Cold War context, I'd imagine that countries like Sweden and Yugoslavia in Europe, Australia, Brazil and Argentina in South Africa, India, would have qualified according to this definition. This bpook identifies the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark as other middle powers alongside Canada, Economic and cultural and military power was otherwise centralized in the NATO/US alliance and Warsaw Pact blocs, with China a distant third, and these nations shared with Canada a long-standing interest in a stable, rules-bound international system that would protect their interests and avoid complete superpower dominance.
The Cold War has been over for two decades, and economic and other kinds of power have permeated the world, creating new influences and new influencers and patterns of behaviour. South Korea and Spain weren't comparable to Canada in the 1970s or even the 1980s, for instance, the European Union is now quite comparable to the United States, the BRIC powers--or BICI powers, or BRICE powers, or BRICI power, or whatever--are going to follow suit, migration and popular culture is tying the entire world together, et cetera, et cetera. Canada's no longer a uniquely powerful middle power poised to take advantage of the post-Second World War power vacuum; Canada's just part of a crowd. The only way to avoid this overshadowing, really, would be to keep other countries and their inhabitants from enjoying the same conditions that Canadians enjoy. How detrimental would that be to Canadian interests, ethics aside?
A permanent G-20 secretariat would be nice, and the idea of Montréal (or better yet, Toronto!) as an international centre alongside Brussels and Geneva and Vienna and maybe even New York City, is wonderful. It's best not to exaggerate our future prospects and, frankly, world leadership's a bore and a drain. It's time to share the load.
This year, Canada will play host to a Group of Eight summit followed by a Group of 20 summit that it will co-host with South Korea. In the fall, another G20 summit will take place in Korea, organized and led only by South Korea.
The confluence of the two summits in this country will be trumpeted by the Harper government as an example of Canada's relevance, whereas the more accurate story line suggests the reverse.
For a long time, the G8 (the G7 before Russia joined) suited Canada perfectly. It got a seat at the table when Gerald Ford was U.S. president because the Europeans overplayed their hand, demanding a seat for Italy. Mr. Ford said yes, provided that Canada entered the club to balance the new European country.
Canada became a member of a group that, by population or economic weight, it should not have been allowed to join. But now the G8 is finished. From one of eight, Canada will henceforth be one of 20.
The annual Davos conference that will open shortly has already announced that this year's session of G8 representatives will be the last. The Canadian G8 meeting might also be the last, but even if the organization lingers, its utility will have shrunk, because the main action has moved to the G20. Indeed, at the last G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the communiqué described the group as “the premier forum for our international economic co-operation.”
Canada, amusingly enough, does easily qualify for membership in the G-20, with a GDP that, measured using purchasing power parity or international exchange rates, is very nearly the size of Russia's or Brazil's or South Korea's, although a similarly-sized Spain doesn't qualify and Argentina and South Africa seem to have been included at least as much of geographical balance as for anything else. How is Canada dealing with this downgrading, this relegation to the second tier of an organization that, well, Canada supported?
Procedure aside, the morphing of the G8 into a G20 was a Canadian idea back when Paul Martin was finance minister. The question now for the federal government is what relevance Canada might have in the larger group, because axiomatically the country will have much less.
Maybe countries won't want a secretariat for this new organization, but it would be worth it for Canada to sound out the others and offer to place a permanent secretariat, and to pay for some of the costs, in an international city such as, say, Montreal.
Canada could argue that it is not a major power such as the United States or China, and not a European country, there already being too many international institutions located there. Canada does know how to organize events, is relatively innocuous yet more or less efficient, and once had a reputation for being constructive, even innovative, in international affairs.
Or Canada could propose a kind of secretariat in cyberspace, with headquarters moving around, and membership at the top of the secretariat involving the U.S., China and the hosts of the previous and next year's summit, plus the host of this year's.
If Canada were really innovative, it would understand that the major international issue remains climate change. The Copenhagen disappointment showed that a smaller group of countries is needed to work on something better, and the G20, or a subset of G20 countries, would be a sensible group.
Of course, this idea would never be advanced by the Harper government, which dislikes the climate-change file and wishes it would disappear. Instead, news reports this week suggest that Mr. Harper wants the G8 meeting to revolve around nuclear non-proliferation, a worthy subject but more a matter of U.S.-Russian relations. The subject really smacks of an attempt to divert debate away from climate change.
The Harper government's small-minded and unimaginative, who's surprised? Simpson's being excessively optimistic about the federal government's ability to change things. This pompous 2006 Conrad Black article aside, Canadians have tended to think of their nation as a middle power, a country of some influence that's ultimately dependent on an external power and alliance system (the British Empire then Commonwealth, the United States and NATO). Wikipedia's quote of one definition of the middle power is as good as any.
[M]iddle power status is usually identified in one of two ways. The traditional and most common way is to aggregate critical physical and material criteria to rank states according to their relative capabilities. Because countries’ capabilities differ, they are categorized as superpowers (or great powers), middle powers or small powers. More recently, it is possible to discern a second method for identifying middle power status by focusing on behavioural attributes. This posits that middle powers can be distinguished from superpowers and smaller powers because of their foreign policy behaviour – middle powers carve out a niche for themselves by pursuing a narrow range and particular types of foreign policy interest. In this way middle powers are countries that use their relative diplomatic skills in the service of international peace and stability. Both measures are contested and controversial, though the traditional quantitative method has proved more problematic than the behavioural method.
In the Cold War context, I'd imagine that countries like Sweden and Yugoslavia in Europe, Australia, Brazil and Argentina in South Africa, India, would have qualified according to this definition. This bpook identifies the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark as other middle powers alongside Canada, Economic and cultural and military power was otherwise centralized in the NATO/US alliance and Warsaw Pact blocs, with China a distant third, and these nations shared with Canada a long-standing interest in a stable, rules-bound international system that would protect their interests and avoid complete superpower dominance.
The Cold War has been over for two decades, and economic and other kinds of power have permeated the world, creating new influences and new influencers and patterns of behaviour. South Korea and Spain weren't comparable to Canada in the 1970s or even the 1980s, for instance, the European Union is now quite comparable to the United States, the BRIC powers--or BICI powers, or BRICE powers, or BRICI power, or whatever--are going to follow suit, migration and popular culture is tying the entire world together, et cetera, et cetera. Canada's no longer a uniquely powerful middle power poised to take advantage of the post-Second World War power vacuum; Canada's just part of a crowd. The only way to avoid this overshadowing, really, would be to keep other countries and their inhabitants from enjoying the same conditions that Canadians enjoy. How detrimental would that be to Canadian interests, ethics aside?
A permanent G-20 secretariat would be nice, and the idea of Montréal (or better yet, Toronto!) as an international centre alongside Brussels and Geneva and Vienna and maybe even New York City, is wonderful. It's best not to exaggerate our future prospects and, frankly, world leadership's a bore and a drain. It's time to share the load.
