Canada is charting a troubling new course in the Middle East. Under the Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, Canadian foreign policy is tilting strongly toward Israel, a direction that is forsaking Canada’s past even-handedness in the region. This is not only undermining the country’s reputation and economic interests, it is at variance with its European allies and even in some instances the United States.
Take the recent statement by Peter Kent, the junior minister of foreign affairs. Kent told a Toronto newspaper that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada.” To the amazement of many observers, Harper did not publically criticize or demand a retraction of that bizarre statement, which provoked a sarcastic response from a commentator in The Ottawa Citizen. “Peter Kent goes to War!” he titled his article.
More recently, there were further signs that Canada risks marginalizing itself in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Harper government waited until late last week for its foreign minister to mildly disagree with Israel’s announcement issued several days earlier that it would expand settlements in East Jerusalem, even though by then this step had led to a row between the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Israeli actions were also condemned by the broader Quartet – including the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. Yet Harper, true to form, remained silent.
The Harper government’s position on Lebanon during the summer war of 2006 already showed the shape of policies to come. In the aftermath of the Israeli onslaught, the prime minister described Israeli actions as a “measured response.” While other countries have expressed similar sympathy for Israel, Harper has compounded the perception that he is biased by neglecting to travel to the Middle East, preferring to send ministers instead, even as he has made numerous trips to Europe, South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. This is damaging to Canada’s long-term interests in the region – economic, political, even moral.
Canadian media have been focusing on this issue for some time now. The leading television station, CBC, recently ran a documentary asking, “Is Stephen Harper the most pro-Israeli prime minister ever?” The consensus among those interviewed was that he is. Even James Clancy, the president of the National Union of Public and General Employees, joined the chorus, writing last November that the government had “severely weakened our moral and diplomatic influence in the Middle East with its unqualified support of Israel during its brutally disproportionate war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”
Consider the potential economic impact of Canada’s policies. In August 2007, the Centre for International Governance Innovation published a study on Canada’s economic interests in the Middle East. The report maintained that Canada could benefit much more from booming Middle Eastern economies, and urged the government to capitalize, as Australia had, on fostering trade ties with the region.
The study affirmed that the “Gulf Cooperation Council – which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – was Canada’s fifteenth export destination, outranking Brazil and Russia. Despite this ranking, current trade with the Middle East represents only one percent of Canada’s imports and exports.”
In its 2008 access report, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada had a similar beef. It noted that although the Middle East and North Africa included 20 countries numbering over 350 million people, Canadian merchandize exports to the region totaled only $4.8 billion.
Why isn’t Canada doing more in the region? Ottawa’s political positions have something to do with this, and this was acknowledged by the authors of the Centre for International Governance Innovation report. “The challenges noted in advancing trade in the Middle East, and most importantly in the GCC … are political ones,” they wrote.
To revive the golden age of Canadian diplomacy, Harper would be well advised to read the history of how his predecessors, the likes of Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, transformed Canada into a respected voice on foreign affairs. Pearson, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1957, played an instrumental role in introducing into the United Nations system peacekeeping forces, which have assisted in the stabilization of countless international conflicts, particularly in places such as the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon.
Pierre Trudeau, in turn, publically questioned the legitimacy of Israeli settlements. And Jean Chretien opposed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In that way he strongly asserted the independence of Canada’s foreign policy from the United States and the United Kingdom.
The present government in Ottawa is adrift in the Middle East. “Where there is no vision, people perish,” says an engraving at the entrance to the Canadian Parliament. It would be wise for Stephen Harper to read those words once in a while, and act upon them.
Elie Mikhael Nasrallah is a foreign affairs writer and commentator living in Ottawa, Canada. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.