Canada Among Nations: A Big League Player

The 1999 volume of Canada Among Nations, entitled A Big League Player?, is the fifteenth in this annual series produced by the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. The coming of the millennium provides a convenient occasion to review Canada's performance in key areas of international relations and to contemplate future challenges to which foreign policy will be called upon to respond. Canada is distinct in its international persona-a member of the G-7, a recently re-elected non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, an actively engaged member of international alliances and multilateral organizations and yet is a relatively small-population country with an open, vulnerable economy. If Canada's international interests and objectives tend to range globally, its capabilities are rather more limited. Canadian foreign policy must deal with the profound challenges of a small, enthusiastic player playing in the biggest of the big leagues. This tension between Canadian foreign policy goals and capabilities is, arguably, most readily apparent in the three issue areas of human security, economic security, and cultural diplomacy that represent the subject matter of this book. Canada's promoton of human security, which became the defining theme of Canada's presidency of the Security Council during Febraury 1999, will have the formidable task of responding to a complex world of sub-national conflict, unstable states, and nuclear proliferation. Canadian concern for economic security will have to address the very difficult trade and investment policy questions on the agenda for the forthcoming round of multilateral trade negotiations. Cultural diplomacy remains a weak 'Third Pillar' of the Liberal government's foreign policy, but may command increasing policy attention in order to resolve ongoing Canadian quandies regarding such key issues as international education and cultural industrial policy. An analysis of these issues presents significant lessons learned from Canadian foreign policy experience whilst also having important bearing on the future conduct of Canada's international affairs.