By Irwin Cotler and Noah Lew
Now that Mark Carney has been chosen as the new leader of the Liberal party, Canada is likely on the verge of a federal election — a time for Canadians to re-evaluate our priorities and vision for Canada. The impending election comes at a crucial juncture for our country, and indeed, the entire world.
For the first time since the Cold War, we are once again facing a divided world — not between two superpowers, but between two ideological alliances — liberal democracy and repressive authoritarianism. The latter regimes — a new “axis of evil” — are engaging in an increasingly coordinated assault on the rules-based international order, seeking to co-opt international institutions and international law and destabilize liberal democracies.
To make matters worse, the world’s most powerful liberal democracy, the so-called “leader of the free world,” is lurching precipitously towards repressive authoritarianism. Under President Donald Trump, who has a clear affinity for autocrats — if not aspirations to become one — the U.S. is unmistakably descending towards a defection from the alliance of democracies in favour of the axis of evil. The Trump administration has upended the rules-based international order it’s long upheld, and fractured the transatlantic alliance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ill-fated visit to the White House at the end of February encapsulated the sharp American foreign policy reversal. In an appalling public display, Trump and U.S. Vice-President JD Vance openly parroted Kremlin propaganda, perversely blaming Zelensky and Ukraine for being invaded by President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In the week following the meeting, the Trump administration made concrete its betrayal of Ukraine, freezing military aid and intelligence assistance.
As aspiring dictators are wont to do, Trump has also increasingly demonstrated expansionist territorial ambitions. Alongside Greenland and the Panama Canal, it appears that he has a genuine desire to annex Canada.
In 1939, Winston Churchill, facing the looming spectre of Nazism, described the Canada-U.S. border with admiration, noting that it is “guarded only by neighborly respect and honorable obligations … an example to every country.” Today, that is no longer the case.
Against this daunting regional and global backdrop, the importance of principled and effective Canadian foreign policy is more important than ever before. We need to redefine Canada’s role in the world — and we have needed to for some time now. As of last summer, only three per cent of Canadians believed our international reputation had improved in the past year — the lowest on record since tracking began.
It is imperative that all federal political parties embrace a new foreign policy vision for Canada, one that recognizes and responds to the unprecedented global challenges of today, and returns Canada to its roots as a world leader in the protection and promotion of democracy and human rights.
More specifically, Canada’s new foreign policy must first involve strengthening our relationships with liberal democratic allies. We must devote substantially more resources towards deepening economic and political ties with other democracies, and towards working with our allies to promote democracy and the rule of law, which is currently under threat around the world.
This should involve re-earning a seat at the table in our allies’ multilateral partnerships and agreements, deepening bilateral trade and economic ties, and, at a bare minimum, ceasing to deny arms to our closest democratic allies. These actions would be necessary regardless of Trump’s presidency, but have become even more important because of it.
Second, Canada needs to wake up to the reality that the world has entered a new era of conflict between liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes — the new axis of evil. This will require concerted policy action both beyond our borders and here at home.
Internationally, we must staunchly support the liberal democracies on the front lines of this new conflict: Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. If the U.S. is unwilling to lead or even aid that effort, we — alongside our allies — must assume that mantle. We also need to work with our allies to protect the integrity of international institutions, including the United Nations and its agencies, and guard against the weaponization of international law. Furthermore, as the current chair of the G7, Canada must place the protection of democracy and the combatting of autocracy at the forefront of the G7’s agenda.
At home, Canada needs to begin meeting or exceeding our two per cent NATO military spending target as soon as possible, as we committed back in 2014. We must rapidly enhance our military capabilities, with the awareness that our sovereignty is under serious and credible threat —not only from the axis of evil, but also from our neighbour who was once, and hopefully will be soon again, our greatest ally.
In addition, we must take real steps to combat foreign interference, including through legislative and policy measures to protect Canadians from the growing threat of transnational repression. Our government should also dedicate resources towards countering authoritarian disinformation here in Canada, especially online — and at the very least, avoid being influenced by it in policymaking.
Third, Canada needs to re-assume its role as a global leader in promoting peace and combatting human rights abuses. This must be driven by a genuine, principled commitment to building a more just, peaceful and humanitarian world — not cynical domestic political agendas, such as appeasing the demographics of a single riding. Further, it must involve concrete and meaningful action, rather than performative virtue-signalling.
Canada’s peacebuilding and humanitarian efforts should include policy responses to Putin’s criminal war of aggression in Ukraine; Xi Jinping’s Uyghur genocide; the Islamic Republic of Iran’s terrorist proxy network and mass domestic repression; the denial of Venezuelans’ democratic and other rights; the ongoing genocide by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan. Finally, Canada should work towards a genuine, democratic, two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
It is well past time for Canada to retake a leadership role on the global stage in promoting democracy, the rule of law, and human rights and freedoms, and in countering those who threaten them — whether they be in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran or Washington, D.C.
Special to National Post
Irwin Cotler is the international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. Noah Lew is a special advisor to Irwin Cotler and a director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.