As I mentioned previously my wife gave a couple of political books for Christmas, one of which was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (the Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. I started reading it and quickly concluded it was a little too pithy for me so I took it back and exchanged it for While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World, by Andrew Cohen I am about halfway through the book and it is a very interesting read. There is much to comment on in this book but I found this section (pg 69-71) particularly illuminating:
...Much as Pearson was a Nobel laureate, however, he was not pacifist. He knew the uses of power, the necessity of force, and the rule of international law. He embraced the idea of collective security through NATO to constrain the Soviet Union, and he understood the purpose of the United Nations to contain conflict through a show of force.
...Pearson and his colleagues would have little patience for the mythologies which have sprouted like a thicket around peacekeeping and Canada, suggesting peacekeeping flowed from a tradition of neutralism, or a temperament of pacificity, or unalloyed altruism.
They knew, for example, that Canada's very ability as a peacekeeper came from a confluence of circumstances. What had made it a military power in the post-war years - the fact that Germany, Japan, Britain, and France were defeated or severely battered - made it a peacekeeping power.
...Canada joined peacekeeping missions because it was a Western nation and was seen as one. That was certainly the case when it sent representatives to serve on the International Control Commission representatives in Vietnam with Poland, representing the Warsaw Pact, and India, representing the non-aligned nations. In Cyprus that Canada was a member of NATO, helping keep Greece and Turkey, members of the alliance, from fighting with each other. Such was often the case elsewhere. Canada was not neutral. It was not Switzerland.
Pearson knew this. He was a strong believer in deterrence. As historian Sean Maloney says, "Canadian peacekeeping, as conceptualized by Pearson, was an integral, but not central component of Canada's strategy to contain Soviet totalitarianism.
...What's more, Canada wasn't interested in peacekeeping because it was pacifist. Historically, as we have seen, Canada fought often, at great cost, in big wars as well as small, from the Boer War to the Afghan War. It has left one hundred thousand dead in foreign fields. Any suggestions that Canadians are by nature a weak, docile people is poppycock.
It seems to me that the current Canadian mind-set is leave us alone and we will leave you alone. We talk a good game about fighting against Islamic terrorist, and we did participate (peripherally) in Afghanistan, but we don't want to appear too involved. And even though Osama Bin Laden did include Canada in his list of enemies we cling to the belief that that if we don't rock the boat then we will not become an actualized target. Even if you do not believe this is folly (as I do) you cannot ignore that is not the Canadian way. Or at least it was not before the modern concept of liberalism became socialism instead of actual liberalism.
Some of my fellow conservative bloggers have complained about the Conservative Party of Canada moving to far left as to become liberal-lite. Others complain that they are out the mainstream due to the influence of the social conservatives. Since the Liberal Party has carved out the "Canadian Values" niche and warp themselves in the Canadian Flag I suggest a third-way is to become Liberal-Strong, instead of fighting a losing battle.
Embrace the Pearsonian ideals of defending Canada and spreading Canadian values abroad with a respected military.
Embrace the Trudeaupian concept of keeping the state out of the bedrooms of the nation by removing marriage from the sphere of government and keeping it in religious institutions where it belongs.
Embrace the Mulroney legacy of free trade by strengthening international
trade agreement.
Finally flatten the tax structure to make Canada more competitive and to send social engineering through taxation programs to give Canadians the full liberty they disserve (help me out here, my knowledge of Canadian history is leaving me wanting and I can't think of a Canadian PM to attribute this to).
