Ignorance is Policy

The proposal that Canada withdraw from one mission to start another one is very cute... All I ask is that parties propose foreign policies that rationally attach means to ends.

We need to stop being a country that wants to "participate" and start being a country that applies its influence in rational, strategic and "real" ways by using the tools (ie. money, people, and organisations) at our disposal. (Press releases are not real foreign policies).

This problem is not unique to the NDP. It is unique to a country that has never had a very well-developed concept of its own foreign policy, apart from "participating" in coalitions and making very well-intentioned diplomatic efforts.

A very good paradigm for foreign policy and defence policy was issued last year by the Martin government. If policy makers could frame their debates in terms of accomplishing our stated policy with the means at our disposal, we will have made a quantum leap in our strategic culture. Currently, as I mentioned to Pavlichenko, we do not have a strategic culture. We have a very strong moral culture that will vigourously defend human rights on the moral plane. However, when the time comes to pay and equip the forces necessary to enforce human rights in violent parts of the globe, the same moralizers are the ones ignoring defence policy and promoting new domestic spending priorities.