It seemed eerily fitting to hold a forum on the future of Canadian sovereignty the same day the country was remembering Dalton Camp, one of Canada’s harshest critics of the war in Afghanistan.
Camp, journalist and former Progressive Conservative party organizer, died Monday at the age of 81. A staunch defender of Canadian independence, he remained deeply suspicious of Canada’s alignment with Washington until his last days.
Panelists at the March 18 forum, part of the Walter Gordon Symposium organized by Massey College, took Camp’s views to task on the topic “Country or Colony: Canada’s Relations with the U.S. post-September 11.” All seemed to agree that Canada will play a vital role in U.S. foreign policy in the near future, either as cautious critic or submissive partner in “Fortress North America.”
The talk, moderated by TV show Hot Type host Evan Solomon, and featured U of T professor Stephen Clarkson, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente and International Peace Academy president David Malone.
Wente’s address drew most of the criticism. She decried the “undercurrent of vicious anti-Americanism among the thinking classes” that she feels has shut down intelligent debate in the six months after September 11.
“Many Canadians don’t want to believe the war on terrorism is our war,” she said. “Saying anything good about [America] in print is as bad as saying something negative about hockey.”
Audience member Grant Orchard charged that the reverse was true “When we critique [the war on terror], we’re told to shut up,” he said.
Clarkson and Malone called for moderation in American foreign policy, which they believe is now almost exclusively unilateral.
“[The George W. Bush administration] wants to be the second Reagan administration,” said Malone.
“It is convinced of the rightness of its views, making things difficult for its allies.”
Clarkson, author of the recent book Canada and the Reagan Challenge, urged Canadians to voice their concerns about the American hypernationalist reaction to the events of September 11. It is a “colonial response” to think the U.S. analysis is necessarily the right one.
“We owe it to our planet, and to the U.S., to speak with more reasonable voice and mind than the U.S. administration is capable of,” Clarkson concluded.
