What is it with Canada? | Global Dashboard - Blog covering International affairs and global risks

What is it with Canada? David Steven

February 13, 2010 | More on Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks | 2 comments

Canadians used to think of themselves as global citizens, par excellence. Recently, though, this image has taken a battering.

Canada is now so obstructive in climate negotiations that even the Chinese government has had enough of its ‘conniving’ ways. In the midst of global economic turmoil, Canada’s main priority for the recent G7 summit was to force feed finance ministers seal meat.

And, at the Winter Olympics, it is so desperate to Own the Podium that it has long planned to keep practise sessions for other countries to an absolute minimum in order to ensure its athletes get maximum home advantage. ”Skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth will be flying down the fastest track in the world at Whistler with the benefit of 200-plus more practice runs than her rivals,” boasted one of its papers last week.

Canada was told that this policy could be disastrous, especially for the luge and for skeleton (a kind of tobogganing) where the Canadians have built a faster track than any in the world, making practise essential. ”The speeds are going to be high up in the 100s,” warned the British performance manager. ” Therefore accidents are going happen and do happen in sports such as these. We’ve seen broken legs or even worse before for example.”

Sure enough the worst did happen, with Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili killed just hours before the opening ceremony. Charmingly, the Canadians have quickly wrapped up an investigation that blames the dead guy for the accident.

On Thursday, a BBC survey showed that Canada’s international image is beginning to take a battering:

Several countries saw sharp falls in positive ratings of Canada—in the USA the proportion rating Canadian influence as positive fell from 82 per cent to 67 per cent, in the UK from 74 per cent to 62 per cent, in Australia from 77 per cent to 72 per cent, and in China from 75 per cent to 54 per cent. Overall, comparing views in 15 of the countries that were surveyed last year, the proportion rating Canadian influence in the world as mainly positive has fallen on average from 57 per cent to 53 per cent.

Even Canadians, the survey shows, believe the country has a less positive global influence than before. One wonders: do they care?

2 comments »

Richard Gowan on February 13th, 2010 at 2:58 pm:

The basic answer is that Canada is gradually changing as a nation, as economic activity moves westwards. For much of its history, the country has rested on an uneasy settlement between Quebec and Ontario. This is now being eclipsed by the increasing influence of the Western provinces, which are less “European” and bear a close resemblance to the red states in the US. The current, Conservative Harper government is a product of this shift – and, as you note, takes positions that feel rather like the Bush-era US.

So, expect Canada to be less European, and more nationalistic from here on out. Canadian voters have not responded well to Michael Ignatieff’s leadership of the Liberal opposition, although I imagine that most readers of GD would elect Ignatieff President of the World tomorrow.

That said, what’s the alternative? Canada could stick with the old plan of behaving like a little EU, always worrying about its global image. Given how well that’s worked for the EU recently, even I start to see the nationalist case…
Dilip Andrade on February 14th, 2010 at 12:01 am:

Canada’s reputation is taking a battering as Canada takes stands are are unpopular with various other governments. Often in the past, Canada earned favour with other governments by taking positions that may have been immediately detrimental to our own good, in the hopes that the accrued capital could be called upon at other times.

In numerous trade fora, and other international platforms, this hasn’t always been the most successful approach, or at least it hasn’t been perceived as being favourable to Canadian interests. Accordingly, we now have a government that is not interested in playing the long game that some have questioned.

Canada has simply become more assertive of its interests (let us leave the Whistler sliding course aside, as really it’s a matter of a course design that came in late and a desire on the part of organizers to have a home field advantage in a country that has never won a gold medal at home), which puts it on par with other nations. The resulting downturn is simply a result of other countries realising that Canada may occassionaly stand up for its own immediate interests, which it didn’t always do before.

Though I don’t necessarily agree that the focus on short term interests is a bad thing, saying that Canada should be faulted for this approach is hypocritical in view of the fact that this is really what other countries have always done.

A more assertive Canada isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just different, and as the international community becomes used to it, I expect that they’ll go back to appreciating Canada the way that they always have.

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