Diplomatic Departures: The Conservative Era in Canadian Foreign Policy, 1984-93

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom and The History of Fort St. Joseph, and the co-author of
Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American

Until 1984, Canadian leaders had taken pride in their ability to protect
Canadian interests. Brian Mulroney was different. He boasted that he
would improve Canada’s relationship with the United States. He also
befriended Quebec nationalists like Lucien Bouchard and Marcel Masse,
whom he appointed Minister of National Defence. Mulroney’s Secretary
of State for External Affairs (SSEA), Joe Clark, had lost credibility in
1979 over a campaign promise (never fulfilled because of predictable
Arab objections) to move Canada’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem. How well did this duo serve Canada?

According to the editors and writers, they served Canada rather well.
Barbara McDougall, Clark’s successor as SSEA in the Mulroney cabinet,
includes in their achievements the successful fight against apartheid in
South Africa, peacekeeping in the Balkans, military intervention in
Haiti, entry into the Organization of American States, adoption of free
trade, withdrawal of the Canadian Armed Forces from Germany and Cyprus,
an increase in international aid tied to improvements for women, and
promotion of improvements to the environment. The editors note that
Douglas Roche became ambassador for disarmament, while David Macdonald
oversaw famine relief in Ethiopia. Luc Bernier says that Mulroney and
Clark allowed Quebec unprecedented and unparalleled autonomy in foreign
relations, far beyond what Catalonia, Scotland, or any part of any
European country has experienced. Clearly, some of these
Mulroney–Clark “achievements” are controversial, although most
observers would approve at least some of them.

Conventional wisdom, say the editors, which depicts Mulroney as a clone
or servant of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, is simplistic.
Mulroney was less than enthusiastic about Reagan’s Strategic Defense
Initiative. His government did what it could to safeguard Canadian
interests in the Arctic, despite challenges from the United States. He
disagreed with Reagan and Thatcher on South Africa.

There are problems. The book contains nothing on the 1990 Ottawa
conference on German reunification, next to nothing on the Mulroney
government’s position on the undeclared war between the Reagan
administration and Sandinista Nicaragua, and one may well disagree with
the values of some of the authors. Nevertheless, Diplomatic Departures
does present a provocative challenge to conventional wisdom.