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...used to be. Canadian spending on international affairs, on security and defence, on development assistance, has declined over the last decade. The government is no longer as active in international affairs as it used to be. Its capacity to be involved has shrunk. And when it seeks to be active, Canadian influence on key international events and issues appears limited.
Needless to say, debates about the kind of power Canada is in world politics are by no means new. How to measure Canadian power and influence in world politics has been the subject of a running academic--and political--debate for at least two generations. Nor is the idea that Canadian diplomacy is in decline new. In 1993, Arthur Andrew, a seasoned Canadian diplomat, argued in The Rise and Fall of a Middle Power: Canadian Diplomacy from King to Mulroney that the foreign policy of the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney finished the process of decline.
However, the 'fading power' theme became more pronounced after 11 September 2001, when the international system changed so dramatically. There was perhaps nothing more emblematic of the supposed growing 'invisibility' of the government of Jean Chretien on the international stage than the treatment accorded Canada in the speech delivered by President George W. Bush to the United States after 11 September. Bush's speech was framed by the Manichean assertion that all countries had a stark choice: 'If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists.' The president made a point of mentioning a number of friends and allies by name, but did not mention Canada, despite the various Canadian contributions on 11 September, notably the emergency care of some 30,000 stranded air travellers barred from us air space. The absence of any mention of Canada might not have been intentional, but it caused a great deal of angst in Canada because it was so highly symbolic and reflected the growing distance between Ottawa and Washington.
The fading power thesis was given a particular boost by the subtitle chosen for the 2002 volume of Canada Among Nations. The editors of that collection, Maureen Appel Molot and Norman Hillmer, used the 'fading power' motif to explore the degree to which Canadian foreign policy in 2002 was a mere shadow of the robust presence in global politics that Ottawa had enjoyed in the 1950s. (1)
The motif was picked up by numerous commentators in the months before the American-led attack on Iraq loomed and the distance between Canada and the US widened. For example, Richard Gwyn noted...
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