Front Burner - What's Canada's place in a chaotic world?

Episode Date: December 31, 2018

"The power that we have comes from influence, it comes from trying to convince countries to do things," says co-host of The National, Rosemary Barton. She joins Jayme to reexamine a series of events that challenged Canada's position in 2018 - from the chaos of the Trump presidency, to the diplomatic rift with China caused by Canada's arrest of Huawei's chief operating officer.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. How shall we behave in a world we no longer dominate? One answer is to give up on the rules-based international order. To give up on the Western alliance and to order, to give up on the Western alliance, and to seek to survive in a Metternichian world defined not by common values, but rather by a ruthless struggle

between the great powers. Do we need to look up what Metternichian means? We do. And we did. And we did. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So we just heard from Krista Freeland, Canada's foreign affairs minister. And as verbose as that clip was, it really sets the stage for what I want to do this last day of 2018.

And that is to reconsider a few really big tests Canada faced this year. NAFTA, Saudi Arabia, Trump, China and the Huawei arrest. Because those things, they didn't just test Canada. They tested many other countries as well. In 2018, the international order, it was bending. So I want to reconsider those events to try to get a sense of where exactly we fit into the world right now. Rosemary Barton will be my guest. She co-hosts The National. And this is FrontBurner. Hi, Rosie. Hi, Jamie.

Thanks so much for being with us today. It's a pleasure. So I'm hoping that we can start here. If we're going to talk about Canada's place in the world and how things have changed around us, we should really start quickly by laying out what held us together, what has bound us together with other countries. A big one since the 1980s has been a growing number of free trade agreements. That's right. I mean, I think there's a few things that sort of hold the world together in a way that it didn't happen before the two world wars. One of them is trade, particularly for Canada, the NAFTA agreement originally signed in 1994. But there are

lots of other trade agreements pursued by this government and other conservative governments, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And then there's any other sort of international organization where Canada feels it can play a constructive role from NORAD, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G20. I mean, the list goes on. So it's really just the idea that multilateralism, countries working together towards sort of a common interest works better for the world. And what about this idea that we have shared values? Yeah, I mean, I think the idea that shared values are based on are pretty basic, and I don't think anyone would dispute them either. The judicial system is independent.

It works independent from the political system. There is a rule of order in the international community that means you can't just do whatever you want to another country. And that we're all in it together, fighting towards this common good that we've agreed on that means, you know, growth, diversity and peace. And obviously we've made moves since the Second World War to bind us together militarily as well. That's right. And that's a fundamental part of this government's foreign policy as well. So if it's based in trade, it's based in multilateralism. And of course, it means military as well. For Canada, that means participating in NATO.

It means that we are there on the front lines in Ukraine, helping to make sure that Russia doesn't incur further invasions into those places. It means that we participate in NORAD. And it means that this year we decided to get involved in the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. So all of those things in a bid to try and keep the world stable and more secure. If you could characterize Canada here, who are we? Regardless of what, yeah, I know that's such a big question. But if you could characterize Canada here, like, regardless of which party is in power, what do we try to embody in this international system? Well, I was thinking back to the previous government and whether they would have fundamentally disagreed with anything that this government is doing now.

I think the answer is yes. But in a broad way, they also believed that trade agreements helped this country. They signed more than 30. They also believed in military investments and procuring new equipment. They also believed that Canada had a role to play in these different international organizations. So from a broad perspective, Canada is a country that is what's called a medium power, a middle power, a soft power. that is what's called a medium power, a middle power, a soft power. It's a country that likes to lead by example,

that likes to talk about what its values are, and those can change depending on the government, and to try and get everybody else to sort of go in that direction from a broad way. And by that, I mean follow the rule of law and make sure that democracy is working. And from that perspective, I think all governments would be comfortable defending those principles. How do you think we benefit from that, from being part of this order as a middle power? Well, I think it gives us a bigger voice. If you think about it, if we were just out here on our own without being able to participate in any of those international organizations, how much sway or power would Canada actually have?

Probably not a whole lot. And that's in part because we're so big, we don't have many people in the country. And our military might is not as impressive as it is in other nations. So the power that we have comes from influence. It comes from trying to convince countries to do things. And we only can do that by getting close from trying to convince countries to do things. And we only can do that by getting close to those countries and close to those leaders. And so that's why those meetings between the G7, between G20, at NATO are so critical for Canada, because it gives us a voice on the world stage that we probably wouldn't have if those organizations didn't exist. It does feel, though, that this rule has been really tested politically in the last year.

So if we look at Donald Trump, it's hard to not see his fingerprints on everything we just talked about. So he scrapped NAFTA. I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst trade deal ever made. Forced us to resign under a new deal. He's railed against NATO. And what position do you think that has left us in? It's a little bit chaotic. It's a little bit reactionary. It's a little bit confusing for Canada to have had a close ally for so long, our biggest trading partner, but also our closest neighbor, our friend, all those words that politicians like to use and that are true. Those things are all still true. But when you have an administration that doesn't really seem to have a clear vision for the world, for its own country, and that is constantly sort of throwing things into turmoil. Did you reject a one-on-one meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister,

Justin Trudeau? Yeah, I did. Why? Because his tariffs are too high, and he doesn't seem to want to move. And I've told him, forget about it. And frankly, we're thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada. That's the mother load. That's the big one. That has a knock-on effect on us. And that's what we've seen throughout the administration led by Donald Trump, certainly. NATO is a good example. You'll remember Donald Trump wanted to make sure that everybody was paying up into NATO. He's saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations. Even though the participation is meant to be a goal, the participation of how much you're

supposed to spend. And Justin Trudeau at one point at the last NATO meeting said really clearly, you know, you can be a bean counter, but the question that people should be asking is what difference are you making? That's probably not a question that Donald Trump is comfortable asking himself. And it's probably not the thing that matters most to him. We saw the same thing in NAFTA. And that issue consumed our government for about 18 months, because we knew that if we didn't reach an agreement, it would hurt us more than it hurt them. And so when you're dealing with an administration that is compelled to work towards chaos, that is comfortable with that sort of chaos, that maybe has some of the same values, but not all of the same values as you,

it makes Canada's job in the world a lot harder. It makes Canada's job in the world a lot harder. I think a really interesting example of the position that we've been left in, when our largest allies just doesn't back us, involves Saudi Arabia. So we got into this big diplomatic spat with them earlier this year. Chrystia Freeland criticized the kingdom for imprisoning dissidents with connections to Canada. And this escalated really quickly. You'll probably remember that tweet a Saudi group sent out that showed a plane flying towards the CN Tower. Lots of people thought it was a 9-11 reference. And it was just like crickets. Nobody responded to this. Yeah, that was sort of next

level. And it clearly seemed to be some sort of threat in response to our government and our embassy in Riyadh calling out for the release of these human rights activists that have been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, Reif Badawi and his sister Samar. So it's so outraged the Saudis, though, that not only did they use that very questionable meme to come after us on social media, but they did some really concrete things, too, that hurt Canada. They recalled their ambassador from Canada. They banned new trade. They barred Canada's envoy from returning. Then they went further. They stopped flights.

They stopped purchasing wheat. And at one point, they even said that medical students training in Canada, who actually make up a large number of medical students here, would have to come back to Saudi Arabia. So there was a sense at the time that Canada was being used in some way by Saudi Arabia to send a broader message to the Western world about how Saudi Arabia should be dealt with. the Western world about how Saudi Arabia should be dealt with. And as this was happening, you would have thought, hoped, expected that allies of Canada's traditional allies, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, would have stepped up and said, wait a minute, there's nothing wrong with what Canada has done and asked for here. But that didn't happen. In fact, the US State

Department spokesperson said, no, no, Canada and Saudi Arabia need to work this out between them. Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can't do it for them. They need to resolve it together. So it was probably a very stark example of what happens when sometimes you stand up for what you believe in and the world just is not that they don't believe in it too, but they're just not, they don't have your back. I think a lot of people will understand maybe why the United States didn't react or come directly to Canada's defense. Donald Trump obviously has made it quite clear that he has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and wants to maintain that relationship. But why did the UK and France not back us up here?

Well, I mean, the short answer is we all have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia. We all are invested in Saudi Arabia being a sort of ally in that part of the world. We may not agree with the way it is run, but it is a stable country that has proven to be important for global stability. So everyone was sort of dancing delicately around how involved they were going to get when it came to this spat between two countries. And then that escalated when the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed. Prosecutors have been questioning employees from that Saudi consulate, the last place Jamal Khashoggi was seen alive and where he is believed to have been killed and dismembered. The investigation went on.

And as it went on and the weeks went by, it became increasingly clear that there was some sort of state involvement in his murder. that there was some sort of state involvement in his murder. And that's when nations started to realize they needed to say something to Saudi Arabia. It was a question of how far do you go? Canada joined the United States in issuing some sanctions against, I think it was 17 individuals, largely symbolic, but it was something that could be done. The prime minister raised it at the G20 with the crown prince quietly.

He said that there was not enough information, that more needed to be done, even though he knew that that was not going to have a lot of influence on the crown prince. It is unacceptable and unthinkable that someone could have murdered a journalist on foreign soil like this. That is something that the global community cannot stand for. And we're being very clear about that. What, interestingly, Canada didn't do, and this really speaks to Saudi Arabia's position in the world and how much money it has. What it never did, our government didn't do, was cancel this $15 billion deal to sell light armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia. If you are trying to be the ultimate sort of Boy Scout on the block internationally, that might be the first thing you do. I just want to circle back a little bit.

Can we talk a little bit about why we might not be seeing the kind of response from our European allies that we may have even a couple of years ago? I mean, I think the answer is that there is chaos there, too, in a way that there wasn't before. The world is in a really state of upheaval, if you look at it, Jamie. I mean, the United Kingdom doesn't seem to know what it's doing with Brexit. This is no longer a functioning government, and the Prime Minister must admit her deal is dead. Is consumed with whether it will be part of the EU. Completely consumed. That's right.

And how that deal is going to unfold or not unfold. Germany is in political upheaval as it deals with the fact that the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who's been a longtime Western ally, is not going to be around much longer. France is struggling with a large swath of the population who feel that they have not been protected by the government and are railing against things like fuel surcharges. So those are just a few of the countries, but there's others that have problems too. Italy, Spain and others, other places where you might expect a louder voice just simply can't because they are consumed by domestic issues. And domestic issues are first and foremost, obviously, what a government is dealing with. So this country sort of has to go it alone, might be too strong to say,

but is having to do it increasingly by itself. This other sort of situation where we're caught in the middle is the Huawei arrest. So we arrest Meng Wanzhou for extradition to the U.S. and she's a number two at one of the largest telecom companies on the planet. Our officials, including Christopher Freeland, say that this isn't political, that we are a country of laws, rules and arm's length civic institutions. And this goes back to the statement that we heard off the top with Christopher Freeland. And then Donald Trump comes in and he says that maybe there is a political solution to this if it benefited the U.S. around trade or around national security. What do you think about that? to China how our justice system worked, what the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States required, why it was not something that could be ignored. That was something that the Chinese officials either didn't understand or didn't want to understand. And they were

struggling to explain that to them as this began to unfold. And then to have the U.S. president say in an interview that he might be willing to intervene in order to deal with this trade war, as you say, did the exact opposite of what the government needed, the Canadian government needed. And in fact, it undermined what Canada was trying to do, which was to show that this was a legal process and no political interference was happening. interference was happening. So it complicated the issue in a way that the Canadians probably could never have expected. And that's one of those specific examples of how when you have a U.S. president who's flying by the seat of his pants, it makes Canada's life far more difficult. I've seen some people argue here that we should have just let Meng Wanzhou slip by the airport because it's just not worth it in this current climate to go up against these superpowers like that. Yeah, I mean, I think the Canadian government obviously knew that Meng Wanzhou was coming into the country. Authorities knew she was coming here. authorities knew she was coming here, would it have been easier to give her a call on her Huawei cell phone and say, don't come this way because we're going to have to extradite you?

Probably. But again, this is about the government trying to take a principled stand on the way the world should work. And if there is an extradition treaty, if there is a legal reason why someone has to be detained, then they want to take that stand. They want to live by those rules of order. And the reason they want to do it is because they believe Canada works better in a system that is built around that. Two Canadians have been detained in China, and many think that this was retaliation. And we've been exploring this idea today that Canada has had to fend for itself a lot lately. But this time has been a little bit different. We did get some backup. We got some, but we had to work an awful lot for it. Between when the two men were detained and when Canada started to see sort of public support from our traditional allies,

there was about a week or so. And during that time, Canada actually called its allies to say, listen, we need you to back us up on this so that China knows there is international pressure on them for what they've done. So we saw statements from the United States, from the United Kingdom, from the EU, Germany, France, all the statements quite similar saying that Canada was respecting rule of law when it detained Meng Wanzhou, and that all those other nations were concerned about the detention of Canadian citizens, particularly if it was being done as a retaliatory act. So good to get international support.

Not so good that we had to sort of go out of our way to ask for it. What are your thoughts on how the United States responded to this issue in particular? Because we have arrested this woman at their request. Yeah, it was a strange statement. It almost made it sound like the United States wasn't even part of this, wasn't a player in any of this. And we are proceeding with the extradition treaty at legal proceeding without recognizing that we were doing this at their request. And as part of a long investigation into Huawei was a little odd. And it was almost as though they were trying to stay out of it and as neutral as possible, too. Do you think if something like this had happened five years ago, even, we would be seeing similar responses from all of

these players. It probably would have come a little bit faster. I think five years ago, the world was obviously a different place, but it was going to be a more stable place. And the United States certainly would have jumped at the chance to defend us in a different way. You know, perhaps another example of this long-term strategy that you're talking about, about Canada trying to preserve this international rules-based order for its own benefit as a middle power

is what just happened or what recently happened with Christzysztof Freeland and Russia. So Freeland just led a G7 statement condemning Russia for seizing three Ukrainian naval vessels near Crimea and taking 24 soldiers custody. Canada strongly condemns Russia's actions against Ukraine in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait. We call on Russia to immediately de-escalate, release the captured crew and vessels, and not impede passage through the Kerch Strait. The response from the U.S. was really lukewarm on this.

Trump refused to even condemn Russia. Yeah, and it's an example that would be particularly important for this country. The Ukrainian diaspora in this country is large and vocal and watching closely how any Canadian government reacts to those kinds of moves from Russia. Chrystia Freeland is already much maligned by Russia and the Russians. She's still on the list of people who are under sanctions and wouldn't be allowed in. So she certainly personally doesn't have a problem sticking it to the Russians any further. And that was another move where it was important not only to many people in this country to say this is not allowed, but it was also probably a not so subtle message to the United States

that sometimes Russia needs to be contained. And at a time when the United States seems sometimes reluctant to do that, Canada will. If you live next to a superpower, maybe the only superpower really left in the world, if you think about it, you are probably better protected if these rules-based order continues internationally. So whenever you have a minute to stick up your hand, even if it's doing it in spite of what the United States is doing, you have to stick up your hand and do it. Even though you know it's going to maybe cause you some immediate trouble in the short term,

the long term, I think, is what the government's play is there. Even if that means continuing to tick off superpowers. That's right. And the one superpower that matters probably the most to us, and the one that we have to maintain this complicated relationship with. So, you know, we've talked a lot today about sort of this long term strategy that this government has had. And this year we've seen that strategy play out with Saudi Arabia, China, Russia. And going into this new year, do we anticipate that anything could change? You know, these issues are still teetering. They're still teetering, and they probably won't get better, right, in any of

these places where the world seems to be moving or changing or doing things that are not exactly what Canada wants. I don't think the government will change its position. This is, you know, it is their belief that this is the best way to move forward in the world for them, for Canada, and for the world at large. They also have suggested on a number of occasions that as people sort of doubt the way the world works, because I think that's the theme that we see in the United States and in some of the countries in Europe, where there are these, you know, citizen uprising. Does the world work okay for me? Does it work the best way it can? Canada asks itself a question, and Chrystia Freeland has said this, could Canada thrive in that world? And their answer is no. And so long as their answer is no, Canada has to try and find

a way to bring stability to the world this way and to answer the question that people have, and maybe some people in this country have too, which is, is everything going to be okay? Am I being heard? And will the world work okay if we're not all working towards these common kind of values? Rosie, thank you so much. Thanks, Jamie. So there you go. A New Year's resolution for the liberals. Maintain the post-war international order in the face of growing global chaos. For me, I'm going to try to eat better or go to the liberals. Maintain the post-war international order in the face of growing global

chaos. For me, I'm going to try to eat better or go to the gym. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner, and Happy New Year. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.