Canadian Churches and Foreign Policy

Raymond A. Jones is a professor of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa.

Foreign policy in the 1990s has come to mean far more than a formal
intergovernment framework of external relations: it is now recognized
that foreign policy is woven into the cultural, economic, and religious
fabric of Canadian life. The contributors to this set of essays have
been active participants in the Canadian churches’ drive to make
foreign policy more responsive to Christian ethics. Their accounts are
frankly partisan, and they all have stories to tell of mutual
incomprehension and hostility from government bureaucrats and banking
officials made uncomfortable by the intrusion of the church into their
hitherto private bailiwicks.

The churches have a stated aim to create an internal order that is
just, sustainable, and participatory. To that end, they have lobbied the
federal government. The book includes in its appendix three of these
more important briefs. Chapters of the book discuss the defence of human
rights in Latin America, the protection of refugees, and the promotion
of Canadian corporate responsibility overseas.