Canadian Foreign Policy, 1977-1992: Selected Speeches and Documents

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

Arthur Blanchette has performed a useful service with this compilation
of speeches and documents. Although most of the speeches were delivered
by the incumbent Minister of External Affairs, there are also a few by
the prime minister and Canadian diplomats, as well as statements
released by the Government of Quebec. The speeches and documents appear
in the official language of origin, usually (but not always) English,
and Blanchette inserts his own comments in English.

The subjects include Pierre Trudeau’s justification of cruise missile
tests, Brian Mulroney’s address to New York bankers with his assurance
that “Canada is open for business,” acid rain, Canadian membership
in the Organization of American States, Canadian policy toward South
Africa and Namibia, Quebec-Canada relations, the restructuring of the
Department of External Affairs, narcotics, the Middle East,
foreign-policy reviews, international trade in general, and free trade
with the United States in particular.

Unfortunately, a book this size cannot cover everything. If Mark
MacGuigan had any thoughts on the Anglo-Argentine War of 1982,
Blanchette did not find them worthy of publication. Nor did he mention
Pierre Trudeau’s lack of support for the U.S. invasion of Grenada
(1983) or Brian Mulroney’s pandering to Gabon’s notorious president
Omar Bongo.

The absence of an index complicates any search for material. One must
look long and hard for references to Cyprus, Cuba, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua. And the photographs are not very clear.