Canada In The World: Some Thoughts

What: Canada in the World
When: February 16-18, 2005
Where: Hotel Omni Mont-Royal, Montreal
Who: McGill Institute for the Study of Canada

Attending the Canada in the World conference was an enlightening experience, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to hear the many panelists and speakers that shared their views during the conference. However, a few thoughts come to mind as I look upon the three days in retrospect.

First, the domain of foreign policy is very male-dominated. Though a good number of the participants of the conference were women, the speakers and panelists were almost exclusively men, with a few exceptions. In addition, there was a serious lack of persons of color represented at the conference in general. This doesn’t bode well for the domain of foreign service in Canada, because the lack of cultural diversity will translate into a lack of diversity of perspective, background, viewpoints and vision that comes from having people of different cultural and social contexts. Perhaps the first problem that the Canadian foreign service needs to address is the notion of the foreign service as “old white man’s club” and try to foster interest in foreign policy in the growing multicultural public.

The conference was eye-opening, but it also had a negative view as to the current status of Canada’s role in the world. Sadly, the prevailing solutions for Canada’s foreing policy crisis coming from most of the speakers lay in the domain of militarization. Increasing Canada’s defense spending, focusing less on humanitarian efforts, and aligning ourselves with the United States of America are at the forefront of the experts’ opinions for revamping the current system.

This military and government-based approach is disappointing. Luckily, David Eaves and Parker Mitchell, who infused youth into the proceedings, and a few select others, showed some optimism and constructive thought. They showed how individual Canadians have the power to make a difference, how the true goodwill of the people who populate this country will power our foreign policy and our international standing.

I came out of the conference invigorated, not because of the so-called experts who wanted to talk about Canada in the world, but because of the people who are actually going out and showing the world what Canada really stands for.