Canada and World Order: The Multilateralist Tradition in Canadian Foreign Policy

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University and
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom.

Students of Canadian foreign relations since 1945 have been able to
consult memoirs of participants, studies limited by time or topic, and
books on Canadian–American relations. Keating, who teaches political
science at the University of Alberta, demonstrates that Canada’s
foreign relations include more than its interactions with the United
States. His thesis is that Canada has been an important member of
numerous multinational organizations.

This list of partnerships is impressive: the United Nations, the GATT,
NATO, the Commonwealth, the International Control Commission, the
International Court of Justice, and the Inter-American States, to name
only a few. Keating reviews Canada’s record as a participant, often as
a founding member. By the 1950s, Canada was not the important ally of
the United States and Great Britain that it had been during and
immediately after World War II. However, through multilateral
organizations, successive Canadian governments have exercised power and
influence around the world, from economic forums to peacekeeping
operations to the Law of the Sea.

A book of this size cannot handle everything. However, it does seem
strange that Mitchell Sharp, Trudeau’s Minister of External Affairs
from 1968 to 1974, warrants only one brief mention. Despite two
nonconsecutive terms as Minister of External Affairs, Allan MacEachen
also gets but one reference, while Mark MacGuigan and Don Jamieson fail
to appear at all. By contrast, Joseph Jockel, the right-wing American
Cold Warrior, appears twice, as does Adolf Hitler. There are four
mentions of Howard Green, five of J.L. Granatstein, and three of Edgar
McInnis, but C.D. Howe, Barbara McDougall, and Mikhail Gorbachev appear
but once.

Such anomalies aside, this is a useful supplement to other books on
Canadian foreign relations.