Tough Choices for Canada in a New Geopolitical Environment

For much of the post-1945 period, the global context has been generally favourable to Canada’s core interests. It has also enabled us, at certain moments, to project some of our most treasured political values, such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Our country benefitted materially from a particular global economic structure and expanding forms of interconnectedness that allowed us to develop our domestic market, and increasingly to tap into international ones; from a set of security relationships and institutions, centred around the dominance of the US, that largely protected us from the existential threats that engulfed us in the two world wars of the twentieth century; and from a set of multilateral organizations and forums that amplified our voice, at times well beyond what our relative standing would have predicted. Yet the last decade has witnessed political, technological, economic, demographic, and ecological trends that, in combination, are creating an international environment more challenging to Canada’s interests and values than at any time since 1945. It is a world whose contours Canada has been slow to recognize and adapt to. And it is one in which Canadian policymakers have to work much harder, and smarter, to protect and advance our interests.