Curtis: Should religion be a tool of Canadian foreign policy?
Adjunct Professor at Queen's University and Chair of Statistics Canada's Advisory Committee on International Trade Statistics
- Curtis: Will the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations progress in the coming months?
- Curtis: What regional and/or international challenges are most pressing for the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, respectively?
- Curtis: Are criticisms of the preliminary nuclear accord with Iran prescient or paranoid?
On no account should religion be an instrument of Canadian foreign policy. While the values that derive from all the organized religions in Canada should form part of our approach to our relations with other countries (equality, transparency, honesty, accomodation to others’ views, etc.), institutional advocacy on behalf of any religion should not be part of our package of tools. Canada, and many other countries, both developed, emerging, amd developing, have moved beyond religion as a defining characteristic of our statecraft. We should not revert to pre-20th century practices, no matter what the civic or political pressures.
