Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For?

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

Byers—now a professor of Law at UBC, formerly at Duke University—challenges George Grant’s 1965 bestseller, Lament for a Nation. Grant had argued that the demise of John Diefenbaker’s government doomed Canada to satellite status. Byers notes that Canada has one of the world’s highest standards of living, good agricultural land, extensive oil and gas deposits, proximity to the markets of Europe and Asia, and more stable finances than most other G-8 countries. Disgusted with life in the U.S. under President George W. Bush, Byers returned to his native Canada.

Byers notes that the Bush administration has violated U.S. and international law, ignoring legal procedures which date from 13th-century England and sending suspects elsewhere to be tortured. The recent Canadian record also is bad. Despite the Canadian-sponsored 1997 Treaty of Ottawa, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in Afghanistan delegated land mine placement to the U.S. Army. The Canadian government allowed the CAF to turn Taliban POWs over to Afghan or U.S. allies without any guarantees (such as those which the Dutch received) that the allies would honour the Geneva Convention. Canadian soldiers who did that, warns Byers, might someday find themselves before the International Criminal Court. Preferring not to know, Paul Martin’s government asked no questions about CIA flights through Canadian air space en route to illegal U.S. torture camps in Eastern Europe. Paul Martin and Anne McLellan may also find themselves in the dock, he says. Canadians should promote decency and international law without fear of U.S. reprisal; Canada only gained when Jean Chrétien refused to send troops to Iraq. Canada can afford its own camps for POWs.

The CAF should be peacekeeping, says Byers. Instead, largely to placate Bush, Martin accepted a combat role for the CAF near Kandahar and Harper offers unconditional support to Israel. Kandahar’s costs are excessive, Byers argues. If the Taliban had been a serious threat, Bush should not have diverted U.S. efforts to Iraq.

This book is a wake-up call. Promote law and diplomacy, not arms races and pre-emptive strikes.