There’s too much Canada, not too little

 

A kid that already has handfuls of candies wants to take another whack at the piñata before others have had their first turn. That about sums up the foreign minister’s position on Canadian power in international affairs.

Canada needs greater international influence, according to Melanie Joly. While the Foreign Affairs Minister’s recent comment elicited some commentary, no one has mentioned the inegalitarian, even supremacist, nature of her position.

In “‘We need to increase our influence’: Joly wants to increase Canada’s impact on the world stage”, CTV quoted the minister saying, “What we’re seeing is that the world’s power structures are moving, and therefore we need to be there to defend our interests without compromising our values, and we need to increase our influence.”

But, by almost every important measure Canada has outsized influence over global affairs.

A member of the G7, Canada joined the US and Britain in instigating NATO and the Bretton Woods institutions (International Monetary Fund and World Bank). Eight decades later Canada’s voting share within the multilateral financial institutions is five times its share of the global population and Canada has participated in every major NATO deployment. It currently leads one of four NATO battle groups in eastern Europe on Russia’s doorstep.

According to the Department of National Defence, Canadian troops are deployed on two dozen international missions. Canadian Forces also has bases in Jamaica, Kuwait and Germany, which gives this country more international bases than far larger countries such as China and India.

Canada has long ranked among the world’s top military spenders. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Ottawa spent more on its military than all but 12 countries in 2020. It is one of only five members of NATO, note Royal Military College professors Christian Leuprecht and Joel Sokolsky, with a “full-spectrum military”. Canada far outspends its proportion of the global population. With less than 0.5 percent of the world’s people, Canada is responsible for 1.5% of international military spending.  (more...)

There’s too much Canada, not too little