Canada's Foreign Policy

Abstract

The development of a foreign policy for Canada has been occasioned by certain basic facts implicit in the structure of Canadian society. These facts are economic, social, and strategic. (1) Canadian economy has been built on the easy exploitation of vast natural resources, which in turn has provided the impetus for capital expenditures on industrialization and on competitive transportation networks. The staple commodities have been dependent on a highly fluctuating world market, and the loan expenditure for industrial development has been supplied from abroad. The burden of Canada's obligations is a rigid annual toll on the economy. The basic economic problem of the country, therefore, is to equate her variable export income with the rigidity of her capital cost structure. As a matter of policy, barring major economic upheavals, Canada's own programme of action can be of only secondary importance. (2) The next basic fact germane to Canada's foreign policy is the social complexion of our national community. Both the temper and structure of Canadian society are variations of Western European civilization. The history of this country is an aspect of the expansion of Europe overseas, and the political and social institutions which we have borrowed still look to their forbears for continued inspiration. Our society has been conceived in the image of its maker, and difficult would be the fate of both should that social equilibrium, which is the basis of their relationship, be destroyed. (3) The enviable strategic position of Canada results from the gifts both of gods and men. Geographically, Canada is remote from the present theatres of social upheaval. On the military side, she is shielded by the dominance of France and England in Western Europe, while the community of British and American interests in the Pacific gives strong assurance of safety in that region. Canadians are not vitally interested in the question of collective security because they feel that bounties both political and geographic have endowed their national eXlstence with a comfortable margin of reassurance.