Canada and World Order: The Multilateralist Tradition in Canadian Foreign Policy. 2nd ed.

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. He is the author of Who Killed Canadian History? and coauthor
of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influ

This second edition of Canada and World Order brings the story to the
end of the 1990s. Canada is an experienced player of multilateral
diplomacy, using its strengths to barter deals. And those strengths? A
generation ago, they included a first-rate corps of diplomats and a
well-trained, well-equipped military, along with a healthy ration of
moralizing fervor. Today, only the fervor is left, the nation’s
military and foreign affairs establishments having largely sunk into
irrelevance.

What to do in such circumstances? As Keating shows, Canada turned to
its “human security” agenda, successfully pressing for such things
as a treaty banning land mines, an effort in which it worked closely
with nongovernmental organizations. The government simultaneously
deepened involvement in or extended its reach to other international
organizations, such as La francophonie and the Organization of American
States, in an effort to create new areas of influence for Canada. This
volume, which makes much more use of the historical literature than do
most political science books, is careful and considered in its
judgments.