Adam Chapnick
The golden age
A Canadian foreign policy paradox
We have under-rated Canada’s quality in the past…. I believe that
the strength and wisdom of her contribution in international
discussions and actions after the war will likewise surprise us. The
fact is that Canada has ‘grown up’ in the last few years, despite all her
internal difficulties; she has found herself. Some of her Ministers
have marked ability. There is also in Ottawa a group of high officials
who are still comparatively young—mostly in their early or mid
forties—and whose influence over Canadian policy is and will
continue to be at least as important as that of Ministers, whose
tenure of office is more precarious. They are the heads of
Government Departments and other official bodies. They are able,
enlightened and forceful. If we do not discourage them, but on the
contrary encourage them as well as their Ministers to be our
colleagues in affairs, we shall find them good allies.1
Adam Chapnick teaches defence studies at the Canadian Forces College. He would like to
thank Véronique La Rue-Constantineau and Kaitlin Bardswich for their research assistance,
Norman Hillmer and Hector Mackenzie for their counsel, and the journal’s anonymous
reviewers for their helpful feedback.
1 Memorandum by Malcolm MacDonald containing “some thoughts on the post-war
position of the British Commonwealth of Nations,” British war cabinet, 22 March 1943,
in the National Archives of the United Kingdom, Dominion Office papers, DO35 1838.
| International Journal | Winter 2008-09 | 205 |
| Adam Chapnick |
In 2003’s While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World, author
Andrew Cohen bemoaned the decline of a once-great nation. During what he
described as the golden age of foreign policy (the 1940s and 1950s), Canada
punched above its weight in global affairs and received remarkable
international recognition for doing so. Having entered the 21st century,
Ottawa had lost its focus, and commitment, to the world around it.
The deliberately provocative book—which included a series of policy
prescriptions aimed at reinvigorating Canada’s global presence—was largely
well received, making the one prominent critical review all the more notable.
Political scientist Don Munton disputed the extent of Canada’s supposed
decline vigorously, noting that the golden age was, in relative and quantifiable
terms, not as lustrous as While Canada S