The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is the U.K. the Key Ally Canada Needs?

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Canada's relationship with the U.S. may go back a long way, but our relationship with the United Kingdom goes back even further. And, with Canada-U.S. relations being as contentious as they now are, can or should Britain fill the role America used to play and become our number one ally once again? Host Steve Paikin asks: Mel Cappe, Canada's Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University; Luke Savage, a journalist whose work has appeared in Jacobin, the New Statesman, and the Toronto Star. He's also the co-author of the late Ed Broadbent's memoir: "Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canada's relationship with the United States may go back a long way, but our relationship with the United Kingdom goes back even further. And with Canada-U.S. relations being as contentious as they now are, can or should Britain fill the role America used to play and become our number one ally once again? Let's get into that. Joining us now to explore that, we welcome Mel Cap, Canada's former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs

and Public Policy at the U of T. Anne Fitzgerald, Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. And Luke Savage, journalist whose work has appeared in Jacobin, The New Statesman and the Toronto Star. And we welcome all three of you around our table here today for what is I think a very timely discussion about who's going to be our new BFF out there. Let's find out.

Let's start with, Sheldon, you want to bring this graphic up? This is an excerpt from King Charles III's throne speech in the House of Commons a few weeks ago, during which time he said, Charles III's throne speech in the House of Commons a few weeks ago, during which time he said, "...when my dear late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, opened a new Canadian Parliament in 1957, the Second World War remained a fresh painful memory. The Cold War was intensifying. Freedom and democracy were under threat.

Canada was emerging as a growing economic power and a force for peace in the world. Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear and ones which the government is determined to protect. And then he concluded with, as the anthem reminds us, the true North is indeed strong and free. Okay, let's get into this. Anne, did King Charles's visit accomplish

what Mark Carney's government hoped it would? I think so. It was carefully nuanced, it was carefully staged, but I think what the biggest outcome was that it brought a message to Canada and Canadians. It brought a message that from somebody with a deep affection for Canada, you have friends. You have family.

You will be fine. You can do this on your own, and you are going to be good to go on your own. So believe in yourself and be strong. Mel? I think it did exactly what we wanted, what we wanted, which was the sovereign establishing our sovereignty. And so that was important to have him here and demonstrate to someone who respects him,

because we know Trump has this unusual affection for the Royals, I think he wants to be one, that therefore this was Charles recognizing as king of Canada that we are a sovereign nation. Luke? Well, I'd certainly agree that it was a success as a kind of a media event. You know, I got a lot of coverage. From what I saw, that coverage was universally favorable. I think in that sense, it was a success for the government. But I think in a more long-term sense, I perceive the symbolism here to be part of a broader effort.

And I think you alluded to this off the top in your remarks, a broader effort to reorient Canada away from the United States in light of everything that's been happening and back towards Britain. I'm skeptical of the long-term viability of that, particularly if we're talking about the monarchy. I think the monarchy is something that many Canadians don't feel particularly strong about one way or another. I imagine as the only person here who writes for

publication called Jacobin that I may have stronger views on this than my esteemed fellow panelists. What could you possibly mean by that? But I think if you look at polling, I think there was a bump in polling for the monarchy in Canada after the throne speech. I suspect that will be somewhat ephemeral. Polling on the eve of Charles's coronation from, I believe, Angus Reid found that roughly 60% of Canadians favored

breaking ties with the monarchy. So we don't have a strong Republican movement here, obviously, right? We're not Australia. But in a kind of more long-term sense, I'm not sure that the symbolism of this is going to be kind of lasting in its impact or significance. There clearly was an attempt here

to get a message to the president of the United States. A speech from the throne is kind of a, I mean, it's a bit of a different way of getting that message across, using it as a tool to get a message to Trump. What did you think of that idea? I think it was successful. I think it also reflected the fact that our prime minister has a deep and historic relationship with the United Kingdom, and you always bolster your strengths, right?

You always pick the low-hanging fruit. And that was a low-hanging fruit. We have a lot of like-mindedness. We stand in support of open societies, democracies, all the things that were in different places of the world, including to the south of us, being put at risk at the moment. So it was a quick, low-hanging fruit and a stand for what we both believe in. It always used to be the case that the first foreign visit that a Canadian prime minister would take would be to Washington.

And that was not the case for this prime minister. He went to England and France first. If you were still doing the job, would you have advised him to do the same thing? Sure. I mean, I think he also, you have to remember, he also went to a Calhawatt on that trip. Yes. And it was symbolically for him connecting to the establishing nations who made Canada. And I think it was symbolic and symbolically important. You know, one of the things that emerged after the throne speech that I heard many times was, all of what you've just said is not inaccurate. Yes, there's a lot of people not enamored with the monarchy,

and a lot of people, I suppose, would have preferred that it ended after Queen Elizabeth before King Charles took over. Having said that, comma, anything that distinguishes us from America right now is probably worth hanging on to. Discuss. I agree with that in principle.

But when it comes to the specifics here, the substance of the symbolism of having the monarchy, that seems to be something of a reversion, if you want to, kind of an older conception of Canada that predates, I suppose, the era of free trade and the reorientation or the orientation towards the United States that came through that. So this to me is sort of going back even further and I think I agree with what Anne said certainly about you know shared values between Canada and Britain obviously extensive cultural ties as well. My own family on both sides hails from the British Isles, my dad is a British citizen. But this kind of relationship that is symbolized

between, or by something like having the king deliver the throne speech, to me that symbolizes a kind of a subordinate relationship that I think is quite anachronistic in the 21st century. I think Canada can just act like the multicultural, independent cosmopolitan society that it is. We could do a whole show on this, but we're going to move on because we... I mean, let's hit the nail on the head here, Anne, and that is, is the United Kingdom a

potential replacement for the United States in both the significance it plays in Canadian life, economically, culturally, in every manner, in every way? Okay, big question. I think first and foremost, we can stand together and re-energize the world together. We, especially in terms of, in times of crisis, we're regarded collectively as a safe pair of hands, trusted partners. We have similarities too, and that's not always good for vibrant trading relationships but we have similarities that we can leverage like our interest in agriculture, our interest in energy and green transitions, our strong higher education systems in the scientific

and the research collaboration and actually a bridge that our UK partner can help create for Canada to get to know other parts of the world a bit better. And for Canada to give those other parts of the world valuable things to support manufacturing in places like South Korea and Japan. You know, we have rare earth minerals, we have an abundance of energy, both yesterday's energy and tomorrow's energy. And we can support those high-end manufacturing bases. I think challenges on both sides are economic stresses and Canada has to produce high-end globally competitive products, particularly drawing on its intangible strength to offer

to countries like the UK. I think lastly we both have interests in defense industrial base and dual usage technology. Aerospace is a common denominator to both. Britain has companies like Rolls Royce that builds jet engines. Canada has Bombardier and a partnership with Airbus. So we can leverage our similarities whether it's research collaboration, joint ventures in energy, extraction. Can they be our BFF, Mel? Do you know what that means? I do. I'm sad to say.

However, I don't think they should be. I think they should be one of our close friends, but forever, sure, but not necessarily best friend. I would just remind Luke that he's the King of Canada. We just let him live there. But the key thing to me is that there are these opportunities for us to work together in the world. Canada is a G7 country that was a colony until the 19th century. That we play a different role among G7 countries. Granted, the Americans were a colony as well. But other than that, we have a role

to play as somebody who became independent. And we can play with the Brits around the world. And we can play with the Brits around the world. And we can play with the French. Brexit has made Britain less effective globally and around the world and for us. So I'm hesitant about saying BFF. Luke? Well, just so that I can agree with Mal on something,

I certainly agree with what you just said and that I don't think we should kind of be putting all our eggs in one basket here. with Mel on something. I certainly agree with what you just said and that I don't think we should kind of be putting all our eggs in one basket here. You know, BFF I think might be a little too strong. But as we, I mean, this is not gonna come as news. The President of the United States has not been treating us great for the last six months.

Should we, can we be looking for another country in the world to have that kind of special relationship besides them now? And could it be Britain? I mean, I'm not convinced of the need for a special relationship. I'm not sure why the special relationship with the United States needs to be replaced by a special relationship with another country.

I think we can, obviously, the partnership with Britain is a very important binational partnership. I'm not disputing that. But I don't think it needs to have privileged status. And I'm not convinced of the viability of that in the long term, as I said. Well, I think there are certain areas, and Anne's identified a number of them,

where we can be particularly close with the UK. Military is one of them. Our military trains with the Brits. Often they train with us. They've just closed the British training center at Suffield in Alberta. They used to put every single army officer through a Canadian base. So there are these opportunities that we need to take advantage of. Our rules of engagement are much more similar to the Brits in the military than they are to the United States. We saw that in Iraq and Afghanistan where

Canada worked with the Brits. So I think there are things like that. I would add the Arctic. The Brits actually aspire to be an Arctic nation and they have some of the best scholars and academics in Arctic science and social science and the US has other ambitions in the Arctic as does China and Russia. Remember we are a frontline state with the Russians and therefore the Brits could be very helpful for us in the Arctic. You've been an advisor to the British government for how many years? Oh, since 2012, I think.

2012, okay, so a good chunk of time. Any sense of whether they think of us in a big way? Probably not. I think they do, I think they do. I think what interests them is the research strength and the strength of higher education. Mel brings up a really good point about the Arctic, but more generally and related to the Arctic is the general purpose technology that both countries have to invest in at the moment. Cloud compute, AI, data, cyber security, we're both committed to going in that direction. But Canada's Arctic can contribute greatly to that. Like quantum computing needs cold temperatures.

Data firms require cold temperatures. We have affordable energy that can prop up those things that can become NATO agencies in the future. So there's great potential, not just for defense cooperation, but for dual-use technology cooperation. What might be the biggest impediments to a closer, more valuable relationship between the UK and us? I think if we don't leverage our similarities properly, there's also some tactical issues which I think could be smoothed over easily,

like differences in the trade tension areas, like food standards, data legislation, data localization differences, visa processing, and we need good, smooth visa processing channels to mobilize talent and to share that source of talent, faculty, researchers, student, policy experts. So, but those impediments are not insurmountable. I think if we get a strategic approach in place

that leverages the similarities for joint venture collaboration, for industrial partnerships, for standing together for open society and a welcoming society to new arrivals and visitors, then I think we can be strong and not compete with each other. No. I would just add nuclear to that category that if you look at what's happening, in fact the Brits just announced recently Sizewall Sea going to be an SMR locale of small modular reactors. Ontario has just announced similarly and Saskatchewan is going ahead as well.

So there are opportunities here for both on the science and the construction side, although they are different technologies, different companies that they're using, Rolls Royce versus GE, but it's a opportunity I think for collaboration on moving towards a green energy and I'm characterizing nuclear that way. How about for you? What are the... I won't ask, just fire away. Well, I was just gonna add add since I spent a lot of time thinking about Britain and writing about Britain as well to kind of bring in the British perspective here I think something else that's going on

that we should be cognizant of in these conversations is that as Canada has to rethink a lot of things in light of what we've seen coming out of the United States Britain is really doing something analogous because of course its own relationship with the United States since 1945 has been hugely important. I mean, there's been a bipartisan buy-in from both of Britain's kind of historical, historic ruling parties, the Tories and Labour, around the so-called special

relationship with the United States. And so I think that is a quite profound rethink that is now going on in Britain, just within Britain itself, because of the United States. And I think that would probably, if we're talking about obstacles and challenges in Canada and Britain forming any kind of new partnership, the fact that Britain itself is undergoing

a very complicated process around this stuff is relevant as well. We have, you may have heard, a G7 meeting coming up in our country in the next little while. And I think we need to kind of explore what kind of opportunity, Mel, this sets up for Canada and Britain, with all of the other big powers at the table as well, to do the things that

you've all been talking about for the last 10 or 15 minutes here. What do you think? I agree. I mean, this is... Canada is in the lead for the next six months in the G7. So this is an opportunity where we will chair all the subgroups of G7 collaboration that will take place. If the leaders in June and next week put out a communique that says we want to go with AI, cybersecurity, as mentioned both, nuclear, you could put together Arctic, you could put together a whole series of these that allow for Canada to take the lead with the support of Britain and with leadership in the G7 that could pay off quite well for Canada. Then I think it's France that picks up in 2026 as the leader. We want to position ourselves well for that.

What potential do you see here? Well, I mean, I think we're aligned as far as foreign policy is concerned. There's no dispute there. I think where the greatest potential is, and in a G7 context, is for a middle power coalition to be led by countries like Canada and Britain advocating for the safe and responsible use of transformative technologies. The curve is very steep, the rate at which these are growing and their applications are spiraling as well. There are some countries around the world taking more of a liberal approach to the safety and

responsibility around those technologies. I think countries like Britain and Canada, with the intellectual strength and scholarly strength behind, can just kind of say, whoa, you know, we've got to do this in a responsible, safe way that puts our people and our societies first. Luke? Well, I'd make, I guess, a more general comment here, since I spend a lot of my time thinking about trade and have had a lot of cause to think about it these past few months.

I think in the disruption of the global trade consensus that the Trump administration has brought us, there's an opportunity not only to form new bilateral partnerships and things like that, as we've been discussing, but to actually, you know, undergo a more profound rethink of the nature and character of some of these trade agreements as well. So, you know, for the past 30 or 40 years, I'm generalizing a little bit. I think there's been a tendency in international trade to prioritize the maximization of shareholder profits and that kind of thing. There's been secondary attention, less significant attention given to

environmental protections, labor protections, that sort of thing. So as you know, there are new partnerships being formed, new negotiations occurring around new treaties, new trade agreements and so on. I think all of that should very much be on our minds. There's a real opportunity there. Steve, you should, we should remember, and Luke's right to point this out, the Brits have just joined the CPTPP. I didn't know they were a Pacific nation. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Mel Cap, I want to get into your head now as the guy who used to be the secretary, clerk of the Privy Council in Ottawa, and no doubt had to brief prime ministers on upcoming summits like the one we are about to have. And I wonder, given the circumstances between Canada and the United States today, could you imagine sitting a new prime minister down and saying, look, they're being buggers to us. We should try to marginalize slash isolate the United States at this

meeting and get the other kind of mid-level powers like Canada, United States, France, get them more onside so that we have stronger allies and we don't have to deal with their Mishigas anymore. Can you imagine doing that? I can imagine doing that. I'm not sure that's what I would do. I think if you look at where we were seven years ago when Justin Trudeau chaired the G7 in Charlevoix, he did that. He didn't intend to do that, but he marginalized the leader of the United States, who happened to be Donald J. Trump.

So that was an effect of managing that relationship and if you recall Trump stormed out or I don't know he stormed out but he left and he left early and didn't stay for the final wrap-up. I don't think you want to do that. However, I think you do want the six and Canada should take the lead among the six to manage a strategy to deal with Trump. I must say that three months ago I was of the view that Trump should not be invited to the G7. That if he was going to attack Canada's sovereignty then he should not be invited to be with that, sit at that table. That would be a

pretty heavy decision to take. That would be, now I said three months ago. What changed your mind? I stopped drinking. I don't know. I think it is that Trump has reduced his challenge to Canada. But I do think you're absolutely right that we should be, I would have advised that we should be collaborating with the other countries with the UK, France, Japan in particular and pressing the or developing a strategy on how to deal with the United States. Anne what's your view on that? Yeah I think the message that President

Trump is trying to give in fact the opposite is true the message that President Trump is trying to give, in fact, the opposite is true. The message is that Canada is redundant. Canada is probably the most relevant economic power in the world at the moment. Its vast geography, its capability in the Arctic, its population, its educational infrastructure, its intangibles capacity. So I think we can work in permissive space with the United Kingdom, being Arctic nations, being NATO countries, not being members. Would you try to isolate the United States?

No, I don't think we need to isolate the United States. We're already engaged in these conversations. The US knows that we are an important country. The US knows that it will need us in the future, needs our cold temperatures, our rare earth minerals, hopefully processing and refinement capability that we will develop. And we will quietly diversify our markets, but we need to diversify our products as well. Value add to our products, not let the country drain out its unrefined resources

and let others add value to them. Which is the way it works now. Right, so we need to invest in infrastructure here in Canada. And I think the White House will look on that favourably, thinking that they'll benefit some way in the future. What approach should we take at the G7? Well, I'm in agreement with the principle of operating independently with other middle powers from from the United States and I may think I think there are I suppose

moral and political reasons why I think that's advisable but also just on a more basic level you know the the Trump administration has been totally inconsistent not only about its policies, particularly when it comes to trade, but many other things as well, but about what the purported justification for those policies are. With trade in particular,

we've seen this constant back and forth about, this is a negotiating tactic, one day, the next day, we're completely trying to rewrite the rules of international trade. And so I think just one kind of elementary reason for other nations in the G7 to collaborate and to work independently is that it's very unclear a lot of the time what the US position actually is or what it will be tomorrow. Just one other thing, Steve, that I think is really important is to remember that the

UK and France are both P5 members. They are the permanent five on the Security Council. And working with them is something that is valuable to us. Got it. Canada joined the United Kingdom and other allies yesterday in announcing sanctions against two ministers in Israel's war cabinet, saying that they have incited violence against Palestinian citizens in the West Bank.

The US denounced our move, saying this did not help, in their view, achieve any ceasefire. Apropos of what we were just saying about the UK and Canada working together at cross purposes sometimes with the United States. Mel, is this another example of where we have to go our own way? I think that's right. Canada has an opportunity here to take the high road and despite Marco Rubio chewing out Nita Anand, that was the right thing to do I think. The Prime Minister had said there would be consequences and we've seen those those two ministers from the far right in the Israeli cabinet take positions that were

antithetical to what Canada stands for. To do something is important, even if it means going offside the United States. And aligning with the UK, Norway, Australia, that isn't insulting, frankly. Anne? No, I agree. We're in good company. We've stood up for what's right and proper, and we're going our own way, which is important too. You're not going to disagree with any of that, are you?

I agree. I would only say that substantively, I don't think sanctioning individuals is remotely adequate at this point. But I agree with the direction of the problem. Well, the trickiness about sanctions, if I can just say, is that our capacity to enforce these sanctions sometimes dwindles. And to make sanctions serious and an instrument that can be used in these circumstances, we have to show a capacity to enforce.

And if it's two members of the War Cabinet who are never going to come to Canada, how exactly do we enforce these big tough sanctions? Well, but that's not under... We said at the outset that the King's speech from the throne was a symbolically important event. Gotcha. This is a symbolically important event. This is a symbolically important event. I wonder if there will be more than symbolism at hand. Canada, UK, also obviously NATO members, and there's a NATO summit coming up at The Hague

in the next few weeks. And I just wonder if this also presents another opportunity for us to do whatever we want to start doing at the G7 in Alberta a few weeks down the road at the Hague. What do you think about that? I think the Prime Minister is very conscious of what he's going to face in the Hague, and it won't be pretty or wouldn't be pretty if he hadn't made the announcement he made two days ago or yesterday. The 2 percent.

The 2 percent. And it allows him to have a platform from which to build. So I think the Hague meeting will be important. And we'll have to really read carefully. I mean, I'm now engaged in epistemological trespass. I'm invading Anne's space. She looks OK with it so far. That I think it'll be important to parse what the Prime Minister actually says

when he gets to The Hague and in that meeting because it will be significant in terms of where we're going. Was that announcement by the Prime Minister in your view that Canada would this year I believe he said, this year bring defense spending to two percent of our GDP as per NATO requirements. Was that all about this meeting showing up? Not with our pants down, so to speak? It was absolutely necessary more broadly, I think.

We're a G7 country. We shouldn't be the laggard in the pack. It's useful to do that, yes, before a NATO summit. But I think it's also useful to think a little bit differently about defence and I think intellectually and policy-wise Canada can play a role there. I mean, we have been used to creating defence policy based on three domains, land, sea and air. We now have cyber, we now have space and these domains have no borders. So this is why dual use technologies, even things like icebreakers can be dual use, is important. The Prime Minister has spoken

about the Coast Guard and you know a different kind of accounting formula needs to be used for NATO 2% and anything beyond that these days. And new forms of collaboration. I think Canada can bring specialism areas for the purposes of collective security which is very important in NATO discussions. Your take. Well I'm not sure how to comment here without opening up a wider conversation about the 2% target on the new policy of increased military expenditure. So I know that's not what we're here to talk about, so I'm happy to give my colleagues

the last word on this. Oh, aren't you gallant? How about that? Okay. Let's do it. We've got less than two minutes to go here. So, let me get 30 seconds from each of you on... You've got Anita Anand.

You've got a one-on-one with her, our new foreign minister. You got 30 seconds to tell her, here's what priority number one should be. Fire away. We should be trying to embed democratic principles into all our future international trade agreements. I guess I'd also add as someone who grew up in Oxford County, dairy country, you know I know cheese came up in previous trade negotiations with the Brits so let's not give them any ground there. Let's protect our Oxford Shetter. There we go. Anne?

I would invest in the relationship, but I think I would also commission our embassies around the world to carry out a SWAT analysis, depending where they were. What's a SWAT analysis? Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And how, what we can offer as a country to these countries. What do they need from Canada? Drill down on the five priorities, travel there as foreign minister,

travel with the prime minister to these countries, make our trade diversify by identifying new partners and help Canada become self-reliant. Drill baby drill. Well, and... Of a different sort. Got it. Of a different sort. Mel? I would, I want to apologize to Ralph Goodell, the current High Commissioner, and I'm going

to say be nice to the UK, sidle up to them, take their arm, but don't make them our BFF. And I think it's going to require some subtlety. And it's going to pay off for Canada quite well. And the last thing I'll say, and Luke opened the door, is get rid of supply management. Oh, okay. If we had further shows, we'd bring you two back and you could have it out on that one there. Okay, can I thank the three of you for coming in today? Mel Cap, the former clerk of the Purvey Council, former High Commissioner to the UK, now at the Munk School, and Fitzgerald, Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid

Laurier University. And you can read Luke Savage in Jacobin, New Statesman, Toronto Star, all over the place. He is a prolific journalist and we're glad to have the three of you here tonight for this. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.