Parties pitch Canadians on foreign policy ideas, but a grander strategy still missing

A strange and emblematic thing happened in America on the day of the English-language leaders’ debate in Canada this week. United States President Donald Trump announced he would pull US troops out of northeastern Syria, where for years they have fought alongside the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the so-called Islamic State.

The announcement was strange because many of Trump’s allies and advisors oppose it. The move clears the way for a Turkish invasion of northern Syria that would target the SDF, whom the Turks regard as terrorists. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to drive Kurdish militias from a “safe zone” on the border that he says will house Syrian refugees. Turkish air strikes began Wednesday.

The American withdrawal is immoral and strategically foolish. America’s other allies will rightfully conclude America’s friendship is not something on which they can count. Disorder in northern Syria would make a jihadist resurgence more likely. It’s unclear what might happen to the thousands of Islamic State fighters and supporters, including Canadians, whom the SDF currently detain.

The announcement is emblematic because it fits a pattern of behaviour for Trump. He scorns allies and shuns engagement with the world. This should matter to Canada. Indeed, the SDF are our allies, too. Canadian jets bombed Islamic State positions in cooperation with SDF fighters on the ground until 2016, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put a stop to Canadian airstrikes. (Canadian surveillance planes continued to fly over Syria so that other countries could drop bombs instead of us.)

Now our Kurdish allies face attack at the hands of our Turkish NATO allies because they have been given a green light by our American allies. This is the sort of foreign policy mess you’d think might get discussed in a debate held by people hoping to be Canada’s prime minister. You’d be wrong — although, to be fair, very little relating to foreign policy was discussed during Monday’s debate at all.

This emptiness is reflected to varying degrees in the platforms of the four major national parties. The Liberal one is heavy on on-brand platitudes. “For more than 150 years, Canada and Canadians have made their mark on the world – showing courage and honour in the face of war, working hard to build lasting peace and prosperity for millions of people, and leading the way in fighting climate change,” it reads. Combating climate change is well and good. Linking Canada’s very modest efforts on that front to this country’s struggle in World War II, among other violent conflicts, is silly.

The Liberals pledge to establish a dedicated refugee stream to provide safe haven for at-risk human rights advocates, journalists and humanitarian workers. This is a good initiative. It’s also an easy and low-cost one. It would be more meaningful, but also more difficult, to curb engagement with countries such as Saudi Arabia and China that jail and murder journalists they don’t like. And yet Canada sells armoured personnel carriers to Saudi Arabia, and Liberal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan shows up at a gala celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic of China — even as Beijing holds hostage two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, in a diplomatic dispute.

The Liberals also say they will prioritize education in international development assistance and will lead a campaign to ensure that children living in refugee or displacement camps are educated. A generation of Syrian refugee children have had their educations disrupted or stopped. This is a tragedy with long-term consequences, and an attempt to reverse it is welcome. It is worth noting that most Syrian refugees in the Middle East do not live in camps, and Canada’s funding and development plans must take that into account.

The key plank in the Conservative foreign policy platform is reducing Canada’s foreign aid spending by 25 percent. This is a small-minded sop to isolationists. There are a lot of things wrong with Canada’s international aid and development policy. That we spend too much on it isn’t one of them.

The Tories, like the Liberals, have scattered their foreign policy platform with partisan beacons to signal their ideological bona fides. They promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move Canada’s embassy there — for what purpose, and to what benefit for Canadians, Israelis and Palestinians, isn’t explained. They criticize the Liberal government for providing $110 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides education and health care to Palestinian refugees and their decedents in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Conservatives say it is corrupt, anti-Semitic, and has ties to Hamas, the terrorist organization which controls Gaza.

The Tories have promised to prioritize the health, education and safety of children, especially in conflict zones, in its international development policy. This is humane and reasonable.

They have also pledged to deepen ties with Canada’s traditional allies in NATO, NORAD and the “Five Eyes” intelligence group, and with other like-minded democracies such as Japan, Israel and India. And they promise to advocate for the “CANZUK alliance,” consisting of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Depending on how this policy gets fleshed out, it could be significant. America is leaving a vacuum in world leadership. Other countries, and other coalitions and alliances, need to fill it.

The New Democrats have promised to work toward a goal of contributing 0.7 percent of Canada’s gross national income to international development aid, which they will put toward improving global health and supporting the rights of women and girls. (Canada’s contributions in recent years have been around 0.28 percent.) They promise to recommit to peacekeeping but offer few details.

The Green Party’s platform recognizes the precariousness of global security, and emphasizes climate change as a reason for this. The Greens pledge to strengthen civil society and democratic institutions globally, and say they will prioritize international engagement. Like the NDP, they want to increase Canada’s development aid to 0.7 percent of the country’s national income.

There are praiseworthy items in all the parties’ platforms. What’s missing is a grand strategy. The rules-based order that has been central to Canada’s prosperity and security for 70 years is eroding because America is no longer its champion. So many of the challenges Canada will face — from Chinese belligerence, to refugees, to the security of our friends and allies bordering Russia — flow from this. If party leaders can’t address that reality in a more thoughtful way than they have done so far, Canada will be ill-prepared to face the future that’s coming.