NDVA Committee Meeting

Notices of Meeting include information about the subject matter to be examined by the committee and date, time and place of the meeting, as well as a list of any witnesses scheduled to appear. The Evidence is the edited and revised transcript of what is said before a committee. The Minutes of Proceedings are the official record of the business conducted by the committee at a sitting.

For an advanced search, use Publication Search tool.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the accessibility of this publication, please contact us at accessible@parl.gc.ca.

Previous day publication Next day publication

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

0905

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.))

Prof. Jack Granatstein (Chair, Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century)

0910

0915

The Chair

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance)

Prof. Jack Granatstein

0920

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

0925

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien (Labrador, Lib.)

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

0930

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ)

0935

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Claude Bachand

Prof. Jack Granatstein

0940

Mr. Claude Bachand

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Ivan Grose (Oshawa, Lib.)

0945

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Ivan Grose

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Ivan Grose

The Chair

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.)

Prof. Jack Granatstein

0950

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance)

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

0955

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Joe McGuire

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Joe McGuire

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1000

Mr. Joe McGuire

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Joe McGuire

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1005

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Claude Bachand

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, Lib.)

1010

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1015

The Chair

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Canadian Alliance)

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

1020

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Ms. Anita Neville

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Leon Benoit

1025

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Leon Benoit

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1030

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

1035

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

1040

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Ivan Grose

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1045

Mr. Ivan Grose

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1050

The Chair

Mr. Joe McGuire

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

Mr. Joe McGuire

Prof. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Joe McGuire

The Chair

Prof. Jack Granatstein

1055

The Chair

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Prof. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

NUMBER 011

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0905)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. On behalf of committee members, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Professor Jack Granatstein, who is chair of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century.

Professor Granatstein, in looking at your biography, I was tempted to go over some of the high points of it, but there's so much there that it would probably take me half the meeting to get through it. Instead, I'm just going to allow you to get right into your presentation.

Again, I think it's really important for the committee's members to get some sort of historical perspective on Canada–U.S. military relations. I can think of few people who are better equipped to provide us with that perspective than Professor Granatstein.

Before I turn things over to you, Professor Granatstein, I would like to inform committee members that one of our colleagues, Bob Bertrand, had a heart attack recently, as some of you may know. It looks like he's not going to be back for at least a month or so, from what I gather. I'm sure I speak for all of the members of the committee when I say we send him our very best wishes for a speedy recovery, and we look forward to having him back as a member of the committee again very soon.

With that, Professor, perhaps we could get underway. I know we all look forward to your comments.

Prof. Jack Granatstein (Chair, Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In June 1939, Stephen Leacock wrote about Canada in the coming world war in The Atlantic magazine.

If you were to ask any Canadian, “Do you have to go to war if England does?” he'd answer at once, “Oh, no.” If you then asked, “Would you go to war if England does?” he'd answer ‘Oh, yes.’ And if you asked “Why?” he would say, reflectively, “Well, you see, we’d have to.”

That was precisely the case, and Leacock's reasoning has been used ever since by historians of Canada in the Second World War, to explain the country's situation in 1939.

What is striking to me is that if we substitute “the United States” for “England” in Leacock's formulation, we have a perfect description of our present situation. In 1939, Canada had to go to war because of its values and its sentiments. Today we have to go to war because of our values and our economic interests.

If I may say so, our economic interests are and should be paramount, given the extent to which we are dependent on the American market. But it's certainly no easy sell. As Josef Joffe, the editor of Die Zeit, wrote recently about Europe:

Power corrupts, but so does weakness. And absolute weakness corrupts absolutely. We are now living through the most critical watershed of the postwar period, with enormous moral and strategic issues at stake, and the only answer many Europeans offer is to constrain and contain American power. So by default they end up on the side of Saddam, in an intellectually corrupt position.

That, in my view, precisely sums up the Canadian position today. Unlike Europe, however, Canada shares a continent with the United States, and we will pay heavily if we do not support our neighbour.

This country clearly does not want to accept its global and continental responsibilities. Instead, we want only to be a moralizing do-gooder, the world's moral superpower. We fear terrorism and global instability, but we appear to fear the United States more, an attitude springing our endemic and unworthy anti-Americanism.

Certainly, after September 11, the United States is in an angry, vengeful mood, ready to go it alone if necessary but looking for reliable allies, ready to undertake pre-emptive strikes, ready to talk of ensuring that no rival superpowers should emerge anywhere, and ready to spend $400 billion American a year on defence. The Americans, moreover, have reorganized their homeland defences, creating a federal Department of Homeland Security last fall, with 170,000 employees and a $40-billion budget; establishing the new Northern Command, which is charged with the defence of North America; and assigning National Missile Defense, which they are proceeding with full speed ahead, to their U.S. Air Force Space Command.

Security is issue number one in Washington. Let us make no mistake. The Americans are serious about defending themselves. All great powers traditionally have done this. This superpower will do it more forcefully and with more money. And Canada? We continue to sleepwalk into the future.

The shock of September 11 passed quickly here. Most Canadians grieved with the United States for a few weeks, then moved on. As a result, we largely missed or misunderstood the transforming impact of September 11 on the United States. Our response to Washington seems to be, “Get over it”, and the gulf between Canadian and American attitudes has expanded in the last year and a half.

There has been no defence build-up here, no effort to refurbish the ruined temple that used to be the Department of Foreign Affairs, no effort to play a serious role in Washington and abroad, no effort to draw closer to the United States. Indeed, I believe anti-Americanism is now at a fifteen-year high. We seem to believe the Americans, and especially the George W. Bush administration, are bullies beating up on their friends and enemies alike.

¿ (0910)

We think the Americans are the terrorist targets, not us. Many of us unfortunately even believe the Americans got what they deserved on September 11, and the Canadian response to this seems to be that we should get further away from the Americans both militarily and politically. Well, we can't. The U.S.' Islamist enemies see us as we are: a western, democratic, pluralist, secular state of the kind they detest. Moreover, the Canadian and American economies are too intertwined, our prosperity too dependent on access to the American market, for us to pull away without grave peril to our economic and military security.

The U.S. understands Canadian attitudes and does not like them at all. The Americans have sent repeated messages to us on military and trade areas, and the only problem is that we're not getting the message. The message, in two words, is very simple: Get serious. The west is under attack, North America is under assault, and the U.S. is determined to prevent further September 11s. In the circumstances, the American elite is furious at the way Canadians talk about the United States, furious at Canada's utter incomprehension of the present situation, angry at our lax immigration and refugee policies and our sloppy border and port security. The U.S. is especially furious because it believes we aren't serious about doing our share to militarily protect Canada, North America, and the values we profess.

The Americans offered us the opportunity to enter an expanded North American Aerospace Defence Command designed to include land and naval forces, but the government said no, fearing this might be too risky to our sovereignty, as if we hadn't worked out ways of protecting our sovereignty in NORAD over 45 years. All that was established was a small planning cell in Colorado Springs, and this was a tragic mistake. Why? Because the U.S. has a legitimate and pressing interest in its own defence, which means it must be concerned about all of North America.

Close cooperation in these circumstances is the best way—indeed, the only way—for us to preserve Canadian sovereignty. This is nothing new. Canada has always pursued institutionalized or multilateral ways of dealing with the United States. Canadian leaders used to recognize that either we worked closely with the U.S. in the defence of North America and around the world, or we would get no say when the decisions were being made. This is still true, but somehow Ottawa has forgotten the past lessons.

If we want to be heard on the defence of North America or a war with Iraq, we must be prepared to contribute. Very simply, Canada must be at the table with the United States, assets in hand. Today, we have neither a place nor assets. As a result, Canada has less clout now with the United States—and in most multilateral fora as well—than ever in our post-1945 history. The subtitle of Canada Among Nations 2002, the most recent volume of the Carleton University series on foreign policy, is A Fading Power, and it's exactly correct.

Canadians have not yet realized that if there are threats to North America or anywhere in the world, the United States will either consult and work with its firm friends or will go it alone and then maybe tell us later. A similar sequence is almost certain to be followed when the United States deploys National Missile Defense. If Canada had joined in early, we might have had a say through our share in NORAD, but the government waited too long and the U.S. placed National Missile Defense under a wholly U.S. command. As a result, the Americans will make all the decisions without concern for Canadian interests.

Somehow, we failed to realize that the United States will and must act to defend itself at home and abroad. After September 11, no American government could survive if it did not react this way. Thus, decisions that directly concern all of North America will now be made subject to unilateral U.S. interests.

Let us be clear. We were asked, we said no, and we abandoned our sovereign rights. The main aspect of sovereignty that we have sacrificed is that of being able to participate in the defence of our homeland. Can a nation be sovereign if it cannot defend itself at all, if it completely turns its defence over to a neighbour? I doubt it.

The Ogdensburg Agreement of 1940, the Cold War, NORAD, and free trade all permanently changed the game and tied us directly to the United States, for good or ill. Our default defence of our sovereignty today has been to deny the threat or to resort to anti-Americanism. That this anti-Americanism is stupid and unworthy does not matter. It is the response of choice of the media, intellectuals, and the government. It neglects the simple truth that the United States is a benign neighbour from whom we gain much, that the American values of democracy, pluralism, and secularism are closer to ours than those of any other nation, and that a sound Canadian identity cannot be built on spite toward a larger, richer neighbour.

¿ (0915)

There are iron laws that Canadians must accept. We are part of North America; our economic prosperity depends on the United States; and North America will be defended by the United States with or without our consent. We must live with these facts, and the only question for us is how an adult nation deals with them. We need to grow up, to recognize our national interests, and to seek to advance them. This means being coldly realistic about the world, the Americans, and the threats to us. This means having a modest, modern, effective military capacity, and working with the United States to defend our common space and values.

This committee has, in the recent past, pointed very clearly to the weaknesses of the Canadian Forces. We desperately need full foreign policy and defence reviews, to begin to think about our national interests and military requirements. Maintaining an effective Canadian Forces and working closely with the United States in defence of our common interests simply must be at the top of our national priorities, in my view. The task of political leadership now and in the immediate future is to bring Canadians to an understanding of what we must do to survive and prosper. What Canadians need now is a good stiff dose of realism, and I urge this committee to continue its good work and administer that dose.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Granatstein. If anything, you certainly could not be accused of mincing your words in front of this committee today.

We'll begin the questioning with Mr. Benoit, as usual, for seven minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): Good morning, Professor Granatstein. It's good to have you here this morning.

I just want to ask you about a recent visit—this past week, I believe—by Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. In his visit, he met not only with President Bush, but with all of the key security people in the United States. It was quite a high-profile visit. Mr. Howard is also meeting with Tony Blair. The Americans certainly made a big point of showing the American people that he's a good friend. Quite frankly, I haven't seen that same kind of show of support to the Canadian prime minister by the American government. Is that something that really does point out how the Americans view Canada, or is it just that maybe the time hasn't come for the Canadian prime minister to receive similar treatment?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The Australians, of course, are firmly committed to the American side in the event of a war with Iraq. I think that goes a long way in George W. Bush's Washington. But let's be clear that there are differences between the Australian situation and the Canadian situation. The Australians are stuck on a very large island continent a long way away from everyone else, in their view, and they rely on the United States to defend them, ultimately. It's not as it is with us, where the United States must defend Canada or else risk difficulty for itself.

Australia could be lost and no one would notice very much except the Australians, frankly. They need the United States desperately, and they are prepared to take the steps necessary to let the United States know they recognize their situation; that they will contribute when they must; and that they expect the United States to do the same when the Australians need that help.

¿ (0920)

Mr. Leon Benoit: So it's not really important for Canada to show support for our closest neighbour and ally then.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: That isn't what I was implying at all. I think it's in our interests to show support for our American neighbours primarily because our economy depends on them, our defence depends on them, our values are basically the same as theirs, and our interests fundamentally are connected with theirs inextricably. I think it's very important for us to do it. The reasons, however, are different from those of the Australians.

Mr. Leon Benoit: In the last ten years, would you say Canada has made progress in terms of our relationship with the United States, particularly in regard to our military relationship with the United States? Or have we remained about the same or lost ground?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Ten years ago, I think Canadians thought the previous Conservative government had been far too close to the United States, that it walked hand in hand all the time. Many Canadians thought that was not an ideal situation. The present government, I believe, tried—and properly—to achieve a form of distance from the United States. However, it has gone too far and it has proceeded at the same time as our military power has decreased dramatically. The result is that, today, in a very different world from that of 1993, the situation is as serious as it has ever been on the Canada–U.S. relations front.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So you're saying it's a far different world now.

I think things really have changed in the past couple of years, but I don't think most Canadians have really figured out how big that change has been and that it isn't something that's only going to be a two- or three-year problem to deal with. In fact, it's a very long-term problem. Judging from the resources given to our military, do you think the Canadian government has really recognized that and responded to it as you would expect the Canadian government to respond to it?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: My expectations of Canadian governments are rather low, I'm afraid. In that sense, it responded as I would have expected.

Did it respond as it should have? No, it didn't. We have existed in a state of denial about the threats to us for years. This is really a forty-year process in this country. We have been cutting our defences since about the beginning of the 1960s. We have seen what was once described as “the best little army in the world” reduced to what the British in Bosnia called “CAN'T BAT”. Our battalions there were called CANBAT 1 and CANBAT 2. To the British, they were known as “CAN'T BAT”, which I thought was one of the most damning condemnations I've heard of the Canadian Forces in a long time.

We have simply lost the capacity to play a proper military role. The only force we have at the moment that has real capabilities is the navy, with 8,500 regulars and a handful of good ships, but we're reaching the point at which we can't support them abroad for very much longer. Our frigates, which are top of the line, are going to need their mid-life refits in the very near future, but no money has been allocated for those refits. We don't have any heavy airlift. In terms of our medium-range airlift, some of our Hercules are forty years old. We all know about our helicopters. The army lacks virtually everything. We're in a situation in which we simply cannot carry our weight.

Ministers in this government talk repeatedly about Canada punching above its weight. Well, that can only be true if we're flyweights. I don't even think we rank in the flyweight league anymore.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Speaking of a strategic airlift, we've had natural disasters. We have one in Newfoundland right now. This really doesn't apply to that situation, but in the past we've had to rely on the Americans to move our military people and their equipment to deal with natural disasters even within our country. It seems to me that Canadians really don't understand just how limited Canada is when it comes even to dealing with serious natural disasters. If we were to have—and we will have them again—serious situations of civil unrest or probably an act of terror to deal with sometime in the future, we'll no doubt have countless....

It seems to me that Canadians really don't understand how serious those threats are and how our ability to deal with them is very limited. Why do you think that is?

¿ (0925)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I really wish I could give you an answer that made sense, but I can't explain it to myself. I think we've come to believe in our peacekeeping myth. We assume that all we have to do is send somebody with a blue beret into any situation, and because that person is a Canadian, everyone will say, “Oh, the Canadians are here. Everything's okay.” We assume that we don't need trained, equipped soldiers and that we will never have to fight anybody. If I had a dime for every time I've heard people say we don't fight wars, we're peacekeepers, I'd have a lot of money in the bank.

The simple truth is that today, peacekeeping is war fighting. We have fought wars in our peacekeeping efforts. In Medak Pocket in Croatia, in Afghanistan, everywhere we go now, we are facing serious threats to our troops. We need well-trained, well-equipped people. If we don't send well-equipped, well-trained people, we are putting their lives at risk. I don't think that's fair to our servicemen and -women, and I don't think it's fair to the Canadian public. But we have allowed our governments to get away with this for far too long.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor, Mr. Benoit.

Mr. O'Brien, for seven minutes.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien (Labrador, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a most interesting discussion.

Professor, I don't know much about this, because I'm a new member of the committee. I'd like to have a little bit of a sense of what the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century is. Maybe if I read through your bio, I'll get some of it.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: This organization was formed in Calgary in 2001. To be blunt, it's a lobby group for defence, and it's calling for, initially, a defence review and for more defence funding. It has free membership. We operate a website. We have played a role in presentations to parliamentary committees. We published a defence review. We've published a variety of papers that have achieved some favourable notice. We have close to 1,000 members, including some extremely prominent people, but it's essentially open to everyone. You should join, sir.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: I might.

Your membership is from coast to coast, basically from St. John's to Vancouver and Victoria?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Yes, absolutely. John Crosby is in St. John's. He wrote an article talking about the committee's work, in the last issue of Atlantic Business Magazine.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: The Canada–U.S. relationship is a very interesting and very historic one with me. I hail from Happy Valley–Goose Bay. Goose Bay was built by the Americans during the Second World War. I'm sure you know plenty about that.

I'm particularly interested to hear further on a couple of points that you made. Actually, I'm interested in all of the points you made, but there are two perspectives that I'm looking at. One is the economic relationship between Canada and the U.S. and how that very well might impact on our border controls, from the American perspective, if we don't show more favour. Right now, we're kind of dodging along in the middle of the road. At some point, though, I do agree and do believe that we have to define where we are on this current situation, whether it be Iraq or whatever else it might be, but from an American perspective.

I don't think we should stop being Canadian, but I think we have to recognize that we are part of the North American continent and that we have to live in harmony and make sure that the flow of trade, the flow of defence, the flow of whatever it is, in being good neighbours, is like your neighbour next door on your street.

Give me your take on that, will you?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree with the thrust of your comments. I don't think Canadians realize the extent of the change that has taken place in the last thirty years. In the early 1970s, the Pierre Trudeau government was able to suggest, with good sense on its side, that Canada might follow a third option. In order to reduce our reliance on the American market, we would seek special understandings with Europe and with Japan, and we negotiated those understandings. They didn't work, however, and when the Brian Mulroney government came in, its objective was to establish what Prime Minister Mulroney then called super-relations with the United States. He did. This approach culminated with free trade, followed soon after by the North American Free Trade Agreement. The net result is that we are essentially in an integrated continental market that is—and I'm going to say that I regret to say this, because I was someone who opposed the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1988 and campaigned against it—inextricable.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: So did we.

¿ (0930)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I know. I voted for John Turner because of that.

We were in a watershed position then. We had gone a long way down the integration road in 1988, but 1988 made it permanent. That election determined our future, yet Canadians have not quite realized that. I think some Canadians began to get a sense of what it was in the days immediately after September 11, when the Americans were applying very serious security controls at the border and it was all of a sudden taking a truck an hour to get through. There were lineups at Fort Erie, at the Peace Arch in B.C., and at virtually every border crossing, and they were miles long in some cases.

The Canadian economy could not withstand that for more than a few days. We literally had to go on bended knee to Washington and say, “Please, sir, we're on your side.” We have since moved in major ways to trying to get a smart border and to eliminate such kinds of border crossing problems.

We're the people pleading for treatment here. We're not the demandeurs in this particular instance. We're the ones saying, “You need us, too.” But we need them more. It seems to me to be absolutely foolhardy for a government to challenge the United States on issues of security importance to it when we are in that position with our economy. If the Americans increase the delays for trucks at Fort Erie by one minute per truck—one minute!—the Canadian economy will be broken in a week. We're not in a position to play silly games. Unfortunately, we're doing so.

The Chair: You have one minute left, Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: My next point, very quickly, has to do with missile defence systems or a lack thereof, or where we're going on that. I take it you would agree that Canada should be a part of a North American missile defence system. Can you give me your take on that, on where Canada is, where it should be, and how we should get there?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I think we have to accept the fact that the Americans are going to do this. The Bush administration is going to move on National Missile Defense. I wish they weren't, but they are, so it seems to me that the Canadian government ought to act from a position of realism rather than wishful thinking.

Because the Americans are going to do this, the only question is whether we can get any say in the implementation of National Missile Defense. I think we've already waited too long. The Americans have put National Missile Defense under a wholly American command. There was the opportunity to have it put under NORAD, but I think that opportunity is gone unless the Americans reverse course. I don't think they will, so we're now again in the position of asking, pleading for some consideration. If NMD had been in NORAD, though, we would instead be in a position to sit at the table with them to bargain, to deal, to cajole as much as we could, to see that we get what we want. Now we won't.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. O'Brien, Professor.

[Translation]

Mr. Bachand, for seven minutes.

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): I would like to get one question out of the way before I start.

You mentioned that in 1988 you were opposed to the Free Trade Agreement. Did you also oppose NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement?

¿ (0935)

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Once we had the free trade agreement of 1989, it made sense to move to NAFTA. The world changed, so you then had to live with it.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Very well.

I found your presentation extremely critical of the Canadian position at this time. You talked about sleepwalking, of a ruined temple, of anti-Americanism. Since I am myself a Quebec sovereignist, I often raise here the issue of Canadian sovereignty. I believe it is presently under attack.

I would like to hear your views on this. According to you, Canadians should move towards greater interoperability of our navy, air force and army with those of the United States. If Americans want missile defence, according to you Canadians should say we want it also, that it is important and we want to be a part. If the Americans want to establish a Northern Command, as they said they do, you want us to be part of that also. If the Americans say they want to attack Irak even though they have little evidence, you agree because they are our neighbours and we must tag along. It is better to be the neighbours of the United States than of some other country in the world.

You also want us to adjust our immigration laws because they say our border is porous and they are not happy with how we do things, we should agree to further economic integration... I don't know if you read Paul Hellyer's book “Goodbye Canada” which clearly shows that Americans are taking over just about every Canadian company.

And finally, we should also say yes to cooperation agreements in case of attack that would allow American troops to enter our country to fend off the aggressor.

If we agree to all of this, don't you think we will become the 51st American State? We will have less manoeuvring room than if we were critical on anyone of these issues.

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It's a serious question, sir. How do we best preserve our sovereignty? Do we pretend the United States is not there, or do we recognize that it is and realize that we simply must work with it and cooperate with it in the things that are of absolute interest to the United States?

Right now, there's no doubt that the priority in the United States is security. If we don't cooperate with the United States in ensuring North American security, the Americans will do it themselves. What is then left of Canadian sovereignty? They will take every step necessary. Northern Command covers all of North America. Beyond a planning group, we chose not to participate directly in Northern Command. I would suggest to you that this choice was a greater blow to our sovereignty than anything else we could have done.

By working with the Americans, by being at the table with them when these issues are being discussed, we have a chance—not a guarantee, but a chance—of protecting our sovereignty. If we're not at the table when these issues are being discussed, the Americans will do what they want to do, period. They won't think of Canadian interests, period. It's a hard choice. Do we work with them and, I grant, run risks to our sovereignty, or do we not work with them and, to my mind, lose our sovereignty? We've been following the course of not working with them as much as we should. I would suggest to you that that puts our sovereignty at greater risk than anything else we could do.

¿ (0940)

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: But it might be a policy of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The issue is how should Canada position itself vis-à-vis the United States?

I do not agree that what we presently see in Canada is anti-Americanism. Rather, Canadians and Quebeckers do not want to be viewed as just another American state. They want to keep some discretion in foreign affairs. They want Canada to stake out positions on a number of areas and this leads them automatically to want to distance themselves from the Americans on a number of issues.

I cannot say I blame them. I remember that following September 11, there has been a discussion on establishing a North American fortress. I do not know if you remember. They said that, like in Europe, we could have a common perimeter within which there would be free movement throughout North America. But in their mind, this meant that we had to fully implement U.S. laws.

You have opened an interesting discussion here this morning. You opened up a debate. If we go as far as you recommend in many of those areas I listed earlier, you believe we will have some sovereignty left over, but I say we will have less and less. I guess it is an open debate.

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It's certainly an open debate, sir. My sense is that when the Americans have clear security interests that they think are important and are threatened, it is foolish for us to act against them. We have lots of room on unimportant issues.

The Americans are used to arguments, to debates. They fight among themselves all the time. They won't be upset if we yell at them on issue A or issue B, but if it's issue C that is, in their view, a direct threat to their national security, that's the kind of issue on which we can't afford to pick a fight with them. I think we require a little more judgment in how we play our cards with the United States.

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Bachand.

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose (Oshawa, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Professor, I agree with you. I don't like a lot of what you say, but being a realist, one has to do it. We don't have the choice of moving this country somewhere else. Quite frankly, even if we did and we looked at all the other possibilities, we'd wind up back where we are.

One of our problems—and you stated it yourself—is that the perception is that our immigration system is porous, yet we let in no more refugees than the United States. They have their quota, and we have our quota. They let the same number in.

But what does amaze me—and I don't know what the answer to this is—is the number of Americans I talk to who still have the perception that those September 11 people leaped over the Canadian border instead of going through the American immigration system, which of course is wonderful and has nothing wrong with it at all, according to them. We're never going to beat this perception thing.

I do agree with you that it's better to join in their councils, where we can yell at them, as you say, except for some things that they're touchy about, whereas from the outside, we can yell all we want but they don't listen to us. We're facing this terrible fact of life, and Canadians do not like facing facts of life.

¿ (0945)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree entirely. We're the world's wishful thinkers, all the time. We do ourselves a good deal of damage, too.

In the current issue of Policy Options, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, there's an article by David T. Jones, a former number two at the U.S. embassy here. He lists a number of the statements made since September 11 by senior Canadian ministers attacking the United States in what are quite astonishing terms when you see them listed one after another. He says, “Do you think no one's listening? Do you think this doesn't have an impact on American policy when we in the Department of State read these comments?” Of course, he's right.

What we have too often are Canadian government ministers and officials playing to cheap anti-Americanism by taking shots at the United States. This is counterproductive, it's silly, it works against our interests, and it feeds the perception in the United States that we are not a serious country. It's that perception that I think is most damaging to us. The Americans simply don't think we understand.

Mr. Ivan Grose: I think it's rather strange, too, that some Canadian politicians will do this, and, I feel, to no profit. I don't think it gets you one vote in this country to be anti-American.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Actually, I disagree with you, sir. To be anti-American gets you a lot of votes in this country. John Diefenbaker made a career out of being anti-American. This government is doing a pretty good job of it right now. It's deliberately playing the Iraq situation in an anti-American way, in my view. I think that's profitless, I think it's foolish, and I think it panders to the worst elements in Canadian society.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

We still have some time on the Liberals' side, so I'll go to Mr. McGuire.

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Not to give you the wrong impression here, I know where Canada's best interests are, and they're not in Europe. At the same time, when I talk to my constituents and, I think, when many MPs talk to their constituents when they go home on the weekends, those constituents are really turned off by Bush's ranting, by Donald Rumsfeld's ranting, and by the fact that they take everybody for granted—and they take not only Canada for granted, they take the Europeans for granted, too. It's at the point at which there's actually sympathy for Saddam Hussein rather than for Bush. That is a fact of life. This is what we get when we go home. Our constituents just don't understand why Bush has behaved the way he has, why he has continually lectured us on the forces of evil versus the forces of good.

The President is coming to visit us in May. I'm sure his reception will probably be not the best one that we would want him to have when an American president comes to visit us. But our constituents think we do have a sovereign country here, that we should be able to tell Bush that they feel he is not really the leader they would like to have, and that we should be standing up to him.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: We need some political leadership in this country to explain the facts of life to Canadians. Mr. Bush is not my favourite leader either. The coming war on Iraq is not a war I would fight if I had a choice. But the Americans did live through September 11. It changed a lot of perceptions in the United States, including those of George W. Bush, who, if you'll recall, was seen essentially as an isolationist when he came into office, as someone who didn't want to play a role in the world. George W. Bush was changed by September 11, for good or ill.

I think the Americans believe we ought to have been changed by September 11, too. As I said in my remarks in opening this session, the Canadian response to September 11 was to grieve with the Americans for a few weeks and then to say, “Okay, it's over. Get on with life.” But the Americans reacted very differently, as they had to, as they must, and their government reacted differently.

If Canadians think they have the right to stand up to the Americans and to tell them what we think, we should not be averse to having the Americans tell us what they think. I expect Mr. Bush will do precisely that. It may not be what we want to hear, but as much as I hate to say it, he just might be right.

¿ (0950)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McGuire. Because you didn't get your full allotment of time, we're going to come back to you in the next round.

We'll go to Mrs. Gallant right now, for five minutes.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Professor, you characterized the decision to send troops to Afghanistan as siding with Saddam by default. I understand you, but would you please spell that out?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I didn't mention sending troops to Afghanistan in my comments at all. I don't think I said a word on that. But I think we were looking for a way out of the Iraq situation when we announced we were again sending troops to Afghanistan. Are you referring to that?

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Yes.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I think that was a deliberate evasion. I think the government thought it had found a way of avoiding a land force commitment to an Iraq war by opting for the Afghanistan commitment. I think it was a mistake to do that, in part because I think the Afghanistan commitment is going to be exceedingly messy in the first place. That's point one. Point two is that we are sending more troops than we can sustain.

The commitment is going to be a battalion battle group plus a brigade headquarters. That's going to be a minimum of 1,500 troops. It's going to require doctors that we don't have, specialists that we don't have, and infantry that is already overstretched.

I think this was a very bad decision. I think it came out of the Prime Minister's Office, not from the Department of National Defence. I know it wasn't staffed to send a brigade headquarters, I know it came as a surprise to the department, and I think that was a dreadful error. It flies directly in the face of the Somalia commission recommendations that say no military commitments should be made without the support of the Canadian Forces—in other words, without their share in planning and in saying what they can do.

So I think this was a terrible error on two counts: one, because it's the wrong place for us to send our troops; and two, because it's something we are not easily able to do with our present military.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you.

What would it take to reverse the downward spiral of Canadian sovereignty in terms of dollars, in terms of restructuring the military?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It'll take a lot of money, for a start, and a lot more than will come in today's budget, I regret to say.

The Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century, in the defence review that it produced last fall, estimated that we would need $1.5 billion now simply to hold the line while a full defence review is held, so that we can then say where we want to go and can see what we need to do and the kinds of policies we want to carry out. Our estimate was that a minimum $5 billion a year more would be needed in the defence budget to allow for more troops and to allow for the kinds of equipment they will need to allow for the strengthening of the reserves, which are in desperate shape as well.

It's a long-term process, probably a decade long, with an extra $5 billion a year added to the present budget, to reach the point at which we can have what I called it in my presentation: a modest, effective, modern military force. No one wants 500,000 men, but I think we could get by very well with 25,000 more in the regular force and probably 25,000 more in the reserve forces. But that requires more money, better equipment, and better planning.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: So clarifying the $1.5 billion, that is just to the base budget, it's not over and above what is needed to re-establish our military.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The way the Council for Canadian Security saw it, that was a one-shot, $1.5-billion top-up to the present budget. The review would be held, the review would produce its recommendations—we need this, this, and so on. In the next budget, you would then begin the process of financing that policy. So the $1.5 billion was to hold the line, but you'd need more after that.

¿ (0955)

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Okay.

Now—

The Chair: Very quickly, Mrs. Gallant.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Everyone is strapped for money for defence. Different countries are eliminating the reserves altogether and are using their regular forces for homeland defence, as well as for what the reserves would have done in the past. Do you have any idea of whether or not that type of thinking is even applicable in Canada?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: We've done very well at eliminating our reserves already. We're one of the very few countries that has a smaller reserve force than a regular force, and I think we need a substantial beef-up of the reserves.

A plan for the militia, for example, has been worked out carefully. It costs in the order of $160 million to implement it in the first year, and it would be interesting to see that in the budget today. I know it won't be, but it would be interesting to see it. It would allow for the refurbishment of the army reserve, which at about 15,000 nominally now is well under strength. Yet we're using the reserves more than we ever have in the past.

We're sending a reserve battalion commander to Bosnia, and a reserve company in the coming rotation. That's almost unheard of. About 20% of some units have been reservists, now we're sending a fully formed company, and I believe the intention is still to send a fully formed reserve battalion. We're doing this out of a tiny base, so what we're getting out of our existing reserves is extraordinary. We do this only because the regulars are so under strength.

It would be good to have a reserve that could play the increasingly important role of homeland defence, could support the regulars, could serve as a mobilization base for future conflicts of a kind that we may not be able to foresee, and could keep alive the sense that the military is important to Canadians. That's basically what the reserve does.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor, Mrs. Gallant.

Mr. McGuire, finish off your round.

Mr. Joe McGuire: Just to go back to our witness's statement that Bush was an isolationist until September 11, Mr. Chairman, I think he was basically coming from where the American people probably are too. Even though they're signatories to the WTO, NAFTA, and many other international agreements, they still want to be isolationists. I think the biggest surprise to most Americans is that Canada is their largest trading partner. I don't think any kind of public relations program is going to convince them that we actually are, because their view of Canada is a bit hazy, to say the least.

What our Canadian farmers are looking at and what our Canadian lumber people are looking at is basically isolationist behaviour by the American people. Yet when something like this happens, they want us to be there and to be ready to support them. Even though they probably don't need any of our military support, they just want our moral support, our leaders saying the Americans are right and we're going to be there as their friend and neighbour and so on. But they can't have it both ways—

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, they can have it both ways. We try to have it both ways.

Mr. Joe McGuire: They're big enough to have it both ways.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: You shouldn't assume that if you are friends with a country—and Canadians and Americans are fundamentally close friends, as close as nations can be—that doesn't mean you will not fight about trade issues. It doesn't mean our farmers won't claim they're being screwed by the U.S. government helping American farmers and vice versa, or that our lumbers interests won't claim that, or that our steel interests won't claim that. That happens all the time. That's inevitable.

Even if we support the United States on Iraq, George W. Bush is not going to be able to tell the American lumber producers that they should agree to accept a softwood lumber deal that's favourable to Canada. It doesn't work that way. But there are broader interests that transcend the narrow economic interests sometimes. Sometimes those broader security interests can impact on the economy. I mentioned the difficulties we might have if the Americans took an extra minute to clear trucks going across the border. Let me put it this way. If I was in the White House, that's the kind of policy I'd adopt to bring the Canadians onside. I would use that kind of leverage, without a qualm. I'm amazed the Americans haven't done it.

À (1000)

Mr. Joe McGuire: Do you mean they're not doing it?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: No, they're not doing it. Things get across the border with surprising ease, given the security concerns that the Americans have.

Mr. Joe McGuire: Well, it's slowly getting back to what we consider normal. But for a quite a while, it wasn't minutes, it was hours every day. Things are improving, though.

But if you were prime minister of this country and you knew the sentiment of the Canadian people.... You say we want it both ways. I think the sentiment of the Canadian people is not to fall in line, in full step with the Americans, in this particular situation. They view the last Gulf War as having been legitimate because of the invasion of Kuwait and the Scud missile attacks on Israel and so on, but they don't really understand why Bush is so fixated on bringing down Saddam at this time.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, I don't disagree with the Canadian public's response on this one. The Americans have not made a very good case for war with Iraq. But I also think one of the tasks of political leadership in a country is to lead the people; to explain why you must sometimes do things you don't want to do; to explain why greater interests are at stake; to explain how, when you are one-tenth the size of your neighbour when that neighbour is the sole superpower in the world and 90% of your trade goes to or through that country, your options are sometimes limited. There are things you must do that you may not want to do. It seems to me that the task of leadership is to explain that to the people, because Canadians aren't stupid. They will understand their job may depend on how their government deals with this particular issue.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McGuire, Professor.

[Translation]

Mr. Bachand, for five minutes.

Mr. Claude Bachand: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to talk about the respect for international institutions, especially the United Nations and NATO. We are presently going through a crisis and I believe the whole world understands that the United States of America are the cause.

If there is one thing the United States respect when it suits them, it is our international institutions. But when it does not suit them, they could not care less. In other words, they have started implementing a new international doctrine, or at least one that is becoming more obvious, because in reality they always had the same attitude since they always have been a superpower. But, as you say, they are now the only superpower in the world. Therefore they tend to view international institutions as a pain in the neck.

On the other hand, Canada, in my view, is respectful of international institutions. It views the UN and NATO as important. This is why we are in such a pickle. Although we view the United States as a friend, if one of my friend says he is going to rob a bank, I will tell him I do not agree and that I will not take part. I am not saying the present situation is the same as a bank robbery, but intervening in Irak without evidence, when the inspectors say they found nothing, is viewed by Quebeckers and Canadians as outrageous, as the demonstrations over the weekend have shown. We consider it wrong to go along with this action the Americans unilaterally decided was the right thing to do while sidestepping our international institutions.

Don't you find the United States are riding roughshod at this time? Are you saying we should go along with them and against international institutions? I have great difficulty with this. Could you elaborate on your thinking in this regard?

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, great nations always make their own rules. In the British Empire, when the British were ruling the world, effectively they made their own rules. The French did the same under Napoleon. The Americans are now in a position in which they can do that. Small powers always try to constrain great powers by using international institutions, by using international law, by trying to establish rules to protect them against the lashing out of a superpower. There's nothing unusual in the present situation, it seems to me.

I think it's worth saying that the United Nations is a pretty weak reed. To my mind, it's not an institution in which we should put much faith. We have seen too many Canadian peacekeepers killed because the United Nations didn't know what it was doing. We have seen Rwanda torn to pieces because the United Nations couldn't get its act together. Time after time, we have seen the UN act in ways that are shameful, to be honest. We're now seeing the United Nations being whipsawed by the French, who are arguably the most cynical political nation in the world and who will do anything to serve their interests time and again.

À (1005)

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Good comment.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Frankly, I don't really want to follow Jacques Chirac where he's going.

You mentioned Iraq and the fact that there is no evidence. I think you are simply misguided, sir. I don't like the way the Americans are playing this particular situation, but there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is a monster. There's no doubt in my mind that he has weapons of mass destruction, that he has a country the size of Quebec that gives him lots of places to hide things, and that he is hiding them successfully. The inspectors aren't there to disarm him. They're there to supervise his disarmament, which he's not doing. I think Saddam is playing a very complicated, skilful game, and he has been very successful in gulling public opinion, particularly in Montreal last weekend.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: You stated earlier what you would do if you were the Canadian Prime Minister. Now, if I understand you correctly, if you were the American President, you would send no more money to the United Nations and you would be thinking of withdrawing from NATO as we speak. I can imagine it would be tempting for the American President. If you were in his shoes, is this what you would do? You just said that the will of the strongest must prevail.

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: If I was the American president, I would do what Mr. Bush is doing with the United Nations: using it when he can and avoiding it when he has to.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor.

Mr. LeBlanc, for five minutes.

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, Lib.): Professor Granatstein, when I was at the University of Toronto, a number of friends of mine had taken courses from you at York University. Your teaching is legendary in Toronto, and I can see why from your presentation this morning.

I don't disagree with a lot of the realism that you advocate. You have the luxury of being able to be intellectually consistent—

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

À (1010)

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: —and to advocate from the positions you've held in the university community and so on, and I say sincerely that it's refreshing and it's interesting. I want to pick up a little bit, though, on what my colleague Joe McGuire was pursuing.

Like Joe and like many others, I know there is a sense—and it's anecdotal—among the many people we talk to, of a great hesitancy, particularly about the potential American action in Iraq. You have talked about, for example, North America and National Missile Defense, Northern Command, and some of these operations or institutions the Americans are putting together, and about the Canadian position being one of hesitancy or one of reluctance, and I think you've characterized it well. But some of that is because of a sense that the Canadian public opinion is not yet ripe or mature or at the point at which to jump in. In your rather realistic terms, I don't think the Canadian public is yet there.

You talked about political leadership sometimes convincing the public of the correctness of a particular path, and there's certainly an important role for that. You referred to the watershed election in 1988. The election after that left the Conservatives with two seats. So you can show political leadership and run straight into a lawn mower and make a virtue out of it, but in the business I'm in, in running off a cliff and telling everybody that it feels good when you land on the rocks below.... There's a balance there. In the end, we may end up where you say we should end up, but it's about the road we take to get there and about allowing Canadians to feel some judgment was applied, that some thought was put in, and that it wasn't knee-jerk.

You've talked a lot about the attitude in Washington about Canadians. Go the other side of the border. Why do you think Canadians have this ambivalence or this hesitancy? I'm curious to understand your perspective on why, first of all, you agree that there is a hesitancy. You, yourself, have voiced some of it. Why do you think there's this rather large body of hesitancy about jumping into these things? If you were prime minister of Canada, other than running into the lawn mower, how would you bring about that public opinion or lead that political discussion?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, I did a book called Yankee Go Home? in 1995. The subtitle was Canadians and Anti-Americanism. It was essentially a history of Canadian anti-Americanism, and it suggested that it made sense at some times in our past. It was a mobilizing device, a psychic device in a sense, that we used to stop cultural or political integration into the United States. But it has lasted far too long. It has lasted in the face of reality.

One of the things the Mulroney government did, as I mentioned before, was essentially to make irrevocable the economic integration of the continent. We had fought elections before 1988 on free trade. In 1911, it was “No truck or trade with the Yankees”, and the Canadian position of not having free trade with the United States won that time. It probably cost us economically, but most Canadians seemed prepared to pay that price. In the 1988 election, Canadians decided they were prepared to take that step. They may not have realized it was irrevocable. I think John Turner tried to suggest it was irrevocable, and Brian Mulroney said you could cancel it in a week. Well, I think Turner was right and Mulroney was wrong. It is irrevocable.

We are integrated in defence terms already. We have been integrated in air defence since 1957–58. We have planned jointly with the Americans since 1940. Our navy is as interoperable as it can be with the United States Navy. Our air force flies the same, although slightly less modern versions of aircraft as the United States Air Force does. Our army uses effectively the same systems as the Americans do. We have moved very far down the road. We all watch American television. We read American magazines and novels. We live on a continent with them. So somehow you have to find a way to preserve what is left of our identity, while recognizing that we must continue to deal with the United States.

To my mind, we have several distinctive things that make us different from the United States, including our history, our institutions, our laws, many of our attitudes, our bilingualism, and our multiculturalism. Those are things that are quite different from things in the United States, and they're the basis of our identity, in my view. But what Canadians all unite around, unfortunately, is anti-Americanism. They much prefer to slander the United States rather than trying to build on the things that do in fact make us different. That is where I think political leadership has a real role to play.

You don't set an example if the Prime Minister's press secretary calls the President of the United States a moron. That sets you back 50 yards on the playing field. That really costs you every day in your dealings with the United States. Simple common sense would suggest that is not how you deal with your neighbour.

We also need better political intelligence on what's happening in the United States. We have 10 consulates in the United States. The Mexicans have 63. It's extraordinary. We don't know what the Americans are doing or thinking, and we don't have the capacity to tell them, where they live in Omaha and San Francisco and Peoria, what we're thinking and why we're different. Sensible policy would suggest that this is one of the basic things we must do. We need to understand ourselves. We have to be able to understand ourselves enough so that we can explain ourselves to the American people. Good policy would see that this is done. That's where political leadership would come in.

À (1015)

The Chair: Professor, Mr. Leblanc, thank you very much. That's a fascinating discussion that we could probably spend an entire meeting on, but we have to go to Miss Grey now.

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Canadian Alliance): Thanks very much, Jack. I appreciate your comments.

Dominic, I just can't help but say that someone in that position has the luxury of being intellectually consistent, as if we don't. I'm starting to figure out here and now why we're in the mess we're in over this whole thing. It's just unbelievable, and I appreciate it. Maybe it came out wrong, but it came out wrong.

Dominic also mentioned to you that, after the free trade agreement, the Conservatives got two seats. We all know that is true historically. But without sounding partisan, I've been through so many campaigns now that I remember some of the main things in each of them. It seems to me that it was going to be cancelled or changed substantially after the Liberals got in, but you said it was irrevocable. I thought the helicopter and Pearson airport deals were done deals, too.

I was just down in Washington two weeks ago for the International Prayer Breakfast. Normally when I go down there, I say, “Hi, my name's Deb Grey, and I'm from Canada,” usually there's this warm reception, the idea that we're cute and they like us up here. There's that good feeling. I was so embarrassed—I felt it tangibly—on this trip that I found myself saying, “I am Canadian, but I don't think he's a moron,” or “...I'm not anti-American, and what you hear on the news is just a few wrangling, rancorous types.”

The thing that embarrassed me more than anything else when I was there took place on Friday, February 7. I was standing on Capitol Hill, and I looked down and saw our marvellous Canadian embassy with our flag flying at full staff. When I looked all the way down the Washington Mall, I saw various American flags still at half staff because of the space shuttle disaster.

I went to the Canadian embassy that Friday afternoon and said, “My name's Deborah Grey. I'm a member of Parliament. I'd like to talk to someone in the embassy.” The guy there said, “Who are you here to see?” I said, “I really don't care. Just someone who's a Canadian who works here.”

I got put upstairs, and a wonderful young woman named Adrianna Borkowski gave my husband and me a tour. I said, “I just need to tell you about this flag business. I want to know what kind of a signal we're sending when our flag is right on up there, eh?” She said, “I don't really know what the protocol is.” I said, “Somehow, my gut tells me our protocol ought to be that when all the American flags are down, then ours should be down, too.” It was such a small thing, but it was also such an enormous thing about the signal we're sending with this anti-Americanism. We need to do something about it.

You mentioned the trade issues, like softwood lumber and agriculture. Yes, those are important issues, but they should not stand in the way of this huge security issue, which we think is absolutely paramount. I think we need to feel that way, too.

Tell me your sense of how we get around that. What is the solution to that? How can our government be sending signals of strength and unity and cooperation rather than continually poking a stick in their eye? That doesn't do any of us any good.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I don't know what the answer is. Obviously the government should be sending that kind of signal, but obviously the government isn't. I suggested earlier in my comments that I think the government panders to the less worthy aspects of Canadian identity. It plays anti-Americanism as a political card.

But it's not just the government. It's other parties in Parliament as well, and it's the media, it's intellectuals, and it's others. The reflex Canadian response is to kick the Americans because we know we can get away with it, because we know that doing so appeals to large segments of the Canadian public, because most opinion in Canada—and I underline “most opinion”—is in fact anti-American. I think it is historically an election winner, I think it is historically the way to garner public support, but I think it's very dangerous for us, particularly in this present climate, present American climate, and present world climate. It's hard to turn it off once you've turned that tap on, but I think political leadership and good sense would suggest that if there ever was a time to turn it off, it's now.

The Chair: Thank you, Miss Grey.

Ms. Neville.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Professor Granatstein, this has been a treat. Your reputation has preceded you. I'm a new member of this committee, and I'm learning much.

My concerns are somewhat along the lines of those of Mr. Bachand and Mr. LeBlanc, on the issues related to Canadian sovereignty. I think everyone sitting at this table certainly understands the importance of the Americans in the lives of Canadians.

You talk about the political leadership explaining the facts of life to Canadians. I didn't note them, but you identified the many things that make us unique as Canadians. One was the multicultural aspect of our society. You also indicated that for the Americans, broader security interests transcend everything else and everything else is sublimated to them.

How do we, as Canadians, show leadership and protect our sovereignty when we run into issues like seeing Canadians who are born in other countries being stopped at the border? It's a basic, fundamental value of Canadians in terms of the inclusiveness of our community. How do we show leadership and reconcile the anti-Americanism that is generated by that in spades, and still be true to our own values as Canadians?

À (1020)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I tend to the view that interests take precedence over values. Values change and values develop. Multiculturalism was not a word that was used in Canada thirty years ago. Scarcely a person in Canada had ever heard of the concept. All of a sudden, it's now one of our fundamental values. Frankly, I don't believe that. It's one of the things that makes us different from the United States, but it is not a fundamental Canadian value. Our fundamental Canadian values, in my mind, are things like democracy and freedom. Multiculturalism is a policy. So I tend not to go as far as you go.

On the question you posed about how we deal with the Americans when they want to stop Canadian citizens born elsewhere, it seems to me that we need to recognize that the United States is a different country that has the right to establish its own rules and regulations. We can complain, and we do. We can say they should treat all Canadians equally, and they should. But in their view, they are under attack. They think they are under threat, and they are. They believe they have the right, as a sovereign nation, to establish their own rules on who they let in, and they do.

Ms. Anita Neville: All right. Let me just take it a little bit further.

If you were prime minister, how would you explain that fact? I want to pick up on Dominic's question. How do you reconcile that? How do you explain it to Canadians? You say it's not a value, but I'm not sure I agree with you. How do you explain what makes us different, what's keeping us different in the context of American security, or the fact that we are, with Mexico now, the neighbour most affected by American pre-eminence, American dominance? How does leadership take this route?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: To my mind, you tell the truth to the people. On the question of access to the United States, you explain that the Americans have their own rights and that they can do as they choose. As prime minister, I would say we will make representations to the United States in the strongest terms, but that Canadians need to understand they are a separate country, that they are in a state of security alert, and that they are under threat; that—you know what, Canadians?—we're under threat from the same things; and that we, too, must therefore take greater precautions than we have in the past.

I actually think Canadians would understand those things. I think Canadians want to see multiculturalism preserved, but I don't think they want to see terrorists running free in Canada. The Americans think that now in many cases, as has been mentioned earlier, and so, in fact, do a lot of Canadians. I think it's time we recognize that we are under threat as much as the United States is, and we need to take some steps that we have not been taking. We want to take them so that we can preserve the things we cherish. I think we can do that, but we don't do that by turning a blind eye to those threats.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor, Ms. Neville.

Mr. Benoit, for five minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Professor, I have three different areas that I want to deal with in five minutes. I don't think we'll quite get through them all, but I'll start with a follow-up on the National Missile Defense comment that you made. I thought it was an interesting comment, and I'd like you to explain what makes you think it's too late for Canada to become involved and to have a real say in the process.

A group of parliamentarians, about five or six of us, went down to Colorado Springs in November. We had two days with General Ken Pennie and General Ed Eberhart, the head, of course, of NORAD and of USNORTHCOM. They spent half a day with us, and General Eberhart made it very clear that the Americans really are hoping Canada will buy into this, and the sooner the better. That was only three months ago, roughly. Do you think the window has been closed in that time?

À (1025)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: If I'm correct that the Americans have given National Missile Defense to Space Command to run, would—

The Chair: Actually, Professor, it's U.S. Strategic Command.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I'm sorry, yes, to Strategic Command.

Strategic Command is a wholly American command. NORAD, of course, is a joint Canada–U.S. command. It becomes much harder for us to buy into something in a wholly U.S.-led, U.S.-run command than it would have been if National Missile Defense had stayed in NORAD. There was, I believe, a very good chance that it would have stayed in NORAD, had we indicated early on that we wanted to participate. But we didn't. So now we're in the position of asking for a say, rather than being entitled to it by right. It seems to me that we've missed a major opportunity.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So it's based on the command, then, that you make that comment.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Yes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: In terms of the Afghanistan deployment, you made a comment that you think it's a dangerous mission. I agree with you, but I'd like to hear your reasons for believing that.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The security force in Afghanistan is essentially based in Kabul at present. It basically protects the Government of Afghanistan. That government is pressing to have the International Security Force extend its reach into the provinces. In my view, that is likely to happen, and we will be the main players if that happens and when that happens. We will be fighting against warlords, and it will be a very dicey situation indeed. To be frank, we will be fighting a war in a place where we have no real interests. We will be doing that using our people who, frankly again, do not have the proper equipment, who will not be reinforced as they should be, who will be away from home, probably in many cases for the fourth time in five years for some of these people, and for six-month terms. It's going to be a very difficult situation indeed.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Of course, the Afghanis are masters of guerrilla warfare. They've been involved in it for decades. So I'm extremely concerned about this mission. I think it's a very important mission, but I think it's the wrong mission. I agree with you on that.

In terms of the budget, if the government were to add, say, $1 billion to the base budget today, looking at a three-year period, that would be roughly 20% to 25% of what this committee recommended. This committee recommended that $4.5 billion to $5 billion be added to the base in that same timeframe. What would that mean to the Canadian military, in your opinion?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I think it will mean the military will be able to pay its operations and maintenance bills better than it can now, but that's all. There will be no new money for new equipment.

My understanding is that whole capabilities will have to be put on the shelf. Tanks, some artillery, and a variety of things will essentially be shelved, to try to scrape together enough money to keep the forces functioning, even with an extra $1 billion. The deficit in the Department of National Defence to carry out the Canadian Forces' basic plan is $4.7 billion.

Mr. Leon Benoit: And what about the mission in Afghanistan? That has to be paid for somehow, too.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: As of yet, it's unclear to me how that will be paid for. My understanding is that there may be some money to cover some of the Afghani mission costs.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Some special—

Prof. Jack Granatstein: There will be a special dollop of funds, but I think the department will be expected to provide some of the costs from its existing budget.

À (1030)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Benoit.

Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: In a sense, a lot of the things I made notes on have been discussed, Mr. Chairman, but I'm going to bring up some of them again.

Certainly, in the defence of Canada, the Department of National Defence is more than an operational thing. Foreign Affairs is the policy side from which we get a lot of our lead, I suppose.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I wish.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: You wish. Well, that's what I want to talk about. I know this is not the foreign affairs committee, but I think where the Department of Foreign Affairs goes, how it takes the lead, the directions that the government adopts, and so on, impact greatly on our defence policy.

I know my NDP friends are not here, but I'm not a left-leaning person. I sometimes tend to believe an awful lot of the people who are formulating policy or developing thoughts on policy in the Department of Foreign Affairs just may be of that mindset, and that's leading us toward a collision. I know the decisions are taken politically, but leading up to it, whether it's at the Privy Council Office level or some other level of officials, that's how we get to where we are. What's your take on some of this?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, I think the Department of Foreign Affairs, like the Department of National Defence, is a department in very serious trouble. They are the two departments of government that are in the worst shape, it seems to me.

As I see it, Foreign Affairs runs on two streams. There is, in effect, the Lloyd Axworthy human security stream, and then there is what I would call the realist stream. To be honest, there is a struggle for control of that department and which way it will go.

We're waiting on a foreign policy review. At present, there is an online questionnaire that the department has put up, and the minister is doing a series of town hall meetings across the country. I gather he's to do fifteen. If policy comes out of the online consultation, this country is doomed. I've been reading what's being posted online, and it's raving lunacy, to be honest. There isn't a shred of realism there. It's Canadian idealism and Canadian moral superpowerism running rampant, and it's no way to run a country.

We desperately need a foreign policy review that is run in concert with a defence policy review, because you're absolutely right, the two do go together. We haven't had a foreign policy review for eight years, and the world is very different. We haven't had a defence policy review for nine years, and again the world is very different. To be honest, we are existing in a policy vacuum. We all know nothing is going to change until there is a change of prime minister. It wouldn't matter if the current one was the best prime minister in the world. With a new prime minister coming in a year from now, there's going to be a new policy. In effect, we will have our defence policy review and our foreign policy review in 2004. Maybe by 2005, we'll be in a position to know where we want to go. I hope we have that much time.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Very quickly, in your view, how much of Canadian policy on various issues, including defence, foreign affairs, and these sorts of things, is based on Canadian polling experts? You see Allan Gregg and all of his crew giving their commentaries from time to time. It seems to me that Canadians love polls.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I don't love them. I always hang up when they call me. Maybe that explains why the polls go in the wrong direction so often. But I think you're right. You're the politician, sir, so you know how those things work better than I do.

The Chair: Do you have anything further, Mr. O'Brien?

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: I have one last comment, and it's a more specific comment.

From talking to Canadian Forces personnel like generals, colonels, and so on, I get a sense that as a result of September 11, Canada is certainly redeploying—mentally anyhow, and hopefully physically—the CF-18s to be a different advantage to Canadian sovereignty in terms of protecting the cities and so on, different from what they were prior to that date, when we were running from bases like Cold Lake and so on. What's your take on that, and how much do you know about this?

À (1035)

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I know we were doing a huge amount of patrolling over Canadian cities after September 11. I know we were basically wearing out our pilots because we were doing so much of it. My understanding is that it has declined substantially since, although I know that in the United States they have gone back to flying patrols over the cities in the last couple of weeks. I don't know whether or not we have done that in the last couple of weeks.

We have a very serious shortage of pilots. Until the last few months, we have had a huge backlog of people waiting to be trained as pilots. We were in a curious position in which, for a variety of reasons, we didn't have enough pilots and couldn't train them either. I hope that's on its way to being worked out, but it's one of the many problems that the Canadian Forces face.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. O'Brien, Professor.

Monsieur Bachand.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to return to the discussion we had earlier. You said that large nations always make their own rules. It was mentioned that you are a distinguished professor. If you had taught me, I would have handed in papers running contrary to your views but I hope I still would have gotten good marks.

I would like to follow up on this, because what you are saying means that power rules. You have a background as a soldier and an historian. When talking about the law of the jungle, you mentioned the British Empire, France, to which we could add Spain. In essence, they imposed their own rules because they possessed the biggest guns and the greatest armada.

However, it seems to me that at the end of the Second World War, a different way of thinking has evolved. People have decided that rather than going with the law of the jungle, we would establish an international forum to try to settle disputes. You cannot ignore that 1945 was a key date where it was decided to establish a forum through which disputes could be settled.

I personally believe Jacques Chirac is the champion of peace while George W. Bush is the champion of war. As strange as it may seem, I believe that before waging war we must give peace every chance possible. To me, this is what Jacques Chirac stands for.

Don't you agree that in this day and age the biggest gun should no longer rule, that problems should be solved through international mediation? Don't you believe that nations should sit down in order to settle their differences at the table?

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, it's always a pleasure to meet a genuine idealist. I'm sure that if I were your professor, I would say I admire the force with which you make your case. But I would think your logic is simply not based on an understanding of history, because it really isn't. The world doesn't run that way. It never has.

Small powers try to constrain the great powers. They usually don't succeed. The United Nations was a grand attempt to try to remake the world after the failure of the League of Nations, which was the first attempt to do this. I regret to say that the UN has not worked any better than the League of Nations did. Yes, we want to keep the UN going. Yes, we hope it will be the basis for some kind of eventual world government. But even if it is that basis, there will still be, I regret to say, a situation in which great powers will always get their way.

This country is not going to be a great power. At best, we're a middle power, and in my view, we're no longer even a middle power if you rank powers in the world today, so we have to rely on the other kinds of defence. That's why we play moral superpower games in this country, where we try to argue that right shouldn't be based on might. But most Canadians do recognize that the big battalions still matter. One of our problems is that we don't have very many battalions at all. Frankly, that's why this country doesn't matter internationally.

The Chair: Do you have anything further, Mr. Bachand?

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Regarding the federal government's present position, would you at least agree that Mr. Chrétien is trying to strike a balance between the two? No one can say in which camp he stands, whether he is on the side of Bush or on the side of the advocates of peace. He is waiting to see on which side the scales will tip. Do you at least share this opinion? Would I get an A for this assertion?

À (1040)

[English]

Prof. Jack Granatstein: A-minus.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Prof. Jack Granatstein: There's no doubt that Jean Chrétien is playing a very skilled game of fence-sitting here. On the other hand, if you recall how I began my presentation, I quoted Stephen Leacock, the McGill professor who said in 1939 that Canada would go to war because we had to go to war. I would suggest to you that since we have naval ships in the region and since we have aircraft in the region, then when the Americans do go, we will go, because our interests will take precedence over Mr. Chrétien's desire to sit on the fence. At some point, he'll have to chose, and my guess is that he'll chose to opt with the United States, because the risks are very severe if we don't.

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Bachand.

Mr. Grose, for five minutes.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Let's get back to the defence cooperation part of our mandate. Let's assume we politicians try to do what's right. Are the armed forces of our country and the American ones ready to work more closely together? Forget equipment for the moment. Is the mood ready for them to work more closely together?

I'm very close to the militia regiment at home, but if my air force squadron moves from Toronto to Camp Borden, it's too far to go. Anyway, I should be aligned with the one in Oshawa. It's a tank regiment and they have squadrons, so that's close enough. They are aligned with a Welsh regiment with whom they trade visits back and forth each year, but they train with the Americans. This is not a thing arranged by the general staff, it's arranged by a brigade commander. Sometimes the local militia commander, the colonel, will arrange it.

My regiment has no tanks, naturally. They have a simulator, but it's a small one and it's used mainly for gunnery. They train on the simulators in the United States, where they are as welcome as the flowers in May.

As one example, they had a Hercules with them one time. It was carrying equipment for some reason, and the Hercules was going to be called away on Saturday and Sunday. It had been arranged that it was going to Fort Knox, in Kentucky. They called me and said this thing had to stay, that it couldn't go to British Columbia. They didn't care if it had to carry the Queen. It didn't make any difference. I asked why it had to stay there. It was because they had American paratroopers coming in on the weekend and they were to jump out of that Canadian plane. I asked what difference that would make. Apparently the Americans could then wear Canadian paratrooper wings, which they valued highly.

I don't know whether I called you or not, David—I wasn't on this committee then—but I called everyone I could think of. We got the Hercules, although I don't know how. The Hercules stayed and the Americans jumped out of it and got their Canadian wings.

This is the kind of cooperation that I sense between the armed forces of our two countries. If the politicians in our country get onside and do the proper thing—I have to bite my tongue sometimes when I say we should go to Iraq; that's after I've bitten my tongue—do you feel as I do, in that the armed forces are as ready as they can be, and that all they need is the will from the top?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I don't think there's any doubt at all. Soldiers always want to train with the best, and at the moment the Americans are the best.

You began your question by saying, “equipment aside”. Of course, you can't take the equipment aside. The simple truth is that, day by day, we fall further and further behind the United States in terms of equipment. In fact, the Americans are so far ahead of everyone else in the world right now in terms of the quality of their equipment and the quality of their training that we will never catch up, to be honest. We may have to decide to specialize in certain niche areas. But soldiers, sailors, and airmen want to work with the best. They want to think they are capable of competing with the best. Man for man, woman for woman, our people are. But in terms of equipment, in terms of training capacity, we're not.

The regiment you're referring to hasn't trained in a serious way for years. I know it goes to CFB Petawawa once a year and has a brigade concentration, etc., but the brigade is about the strength of a battalion and a half and it doesn't have the proper equipment. None of our regular brigades have trained for more than a decade. We're a long way away from being able to field a force of more than a thousand men and women with the capacity to do anything.

À (1045)

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Mrs. Gallant.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Professor, thanks for articulating how beating the anti-American drum translates into votes. The overarching function of government has to be the safety and security of Canadians regardless of political cost.

You mentioned that Islamists see us like they see the U.S.: as western and all that they detest. By not coming forth and openly supporting the U.S. at this time, do you think we are doing anything in terms of preventing Canada from being a direct target?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: No, I don't. I think many Canadians feel that if they distance themselves from the United States, Canada will not be subject to attack. That's naive and foolish. It is the west that is the target of the Osama bin Ladens of the Muslim world. It is democratic states, secular states, pluralist states, all of which we are. The way we live and the way we believe are a threat to their sense of how the world should run. It is simply a matter of time until we are attacked, period.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: The foreign affairs minister has implied that by taking the non-position, we are playing a back-door role to Iraq, in the same way that Canada was the back-door route in conversations with Cuba. Do you think it's realistic to perceive ourselves in that role in this situation?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I hadn't heard that comment from Mr. Graham, but, no, I don't think it's realistic. I don't think we have any credibility in Iraq. I don't think we have a great deal of credibility in the Middle East at all, period.

This is the typical Canadian way of trying to appear to be a bigger player than we really are. I was quite startled to see that one of the newspapers credited Canada for the compromise in the European Union. I thought that was quite extraordinary, since we're not even at the table. Nonetheless, we seem to have done it. But that could have come only from the Department of Foreign Affairs, with some spokesman putting on a little spin. Why a newspaper would buy it, I don't know. Why Mr. Graham believes this, I'm not sure.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: I'd like you to expand upon one of the many quotable quotes that you've given us today: “Power corrupts, but so does weakness. And absolute weakness corrupts absolutely.”

Prof. Jack Granatstein: That wasn't me, that was Josef Joffe, the editor of Die Zeit.

The Chair: He's paraphrasing from Machiavelli.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: He was paraphrasing in a modern way, but he did it very well. What he tried to suggest is what I was implying earlier. The weak try to constrain the strong. Because they are too weak to do anything themselves, they try to establish rules, regulations, and institutions to which they try to force the strong powers to comply. It works up to a time, but it cannot work forever, because, as I tried to suggest earlier as well, great powers ultimately do make their own rules. Great powers will only let themselves be trifled with up to a certain point. You can try all you want to make a moral case out of your weakness, but ultimately the big battalions will speak. And they do.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: What is being corrupted?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: In this particular instance, we find ourselves moving into a situation that was expressed by Mr. McGuire, who talked about how his constituents have become sympathetic to Saddam Hussein. Now, that is being corrupted.

And Mr. McGuire is right, of course. Many Canadians are sympathetic. We instinctively like to say the Americans are the bullies and the Iraqis are the little guy being pushed around. Well, the little guy is a monster. The little guy is a genuine monster. Saddam Hussein is a murderer, a killer, and an aggressor, and the world would be a lot better place without Saddam Hussein. We may not like, I may not like, and Mr. McGuire's constituents may not like the way the Americans are handling this particular thing, but their basic goal is the right one. But we have somehow let ourselves be persuaded that this is all about oil. It really isn't. It's about weapons of mass destruction in an absolutely critical area of the world. So we've been corrupted.

À (1050)

The Chair: Thank you, Professor, Mrs. Gallant.

Mr. McGuire.

Mr. Joe McGuire: Mr. Chairman, I was just wondering if the professor has any thoughts on the role of our coast guard. I know the Americans now have their coast guard as part of the military. Ours was taken from the Department of Transport to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, basically.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: And they let them go to sea without fuel.

Mr. Joe McGuire: It seems to me that even with our navy being one of the better equipped parts of our armed forces, the coast guard could be playing a more crucial role in the defence of Canada, maybe in homeland defence in cooperation with the United States. Have you ever looked into the role our coast guard could be playing or should be playing, Professor?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, I have to take a pass on that. I really have not the slightest expertise in the area of the coast guard. I really don't even know what ships it has.

Mr. Joe McGuire: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McGuire.

I don't see anybody else with a question, but since we still have another five minutes, I'm going to ask a question myself.

With respect to your earlier comments, Professor, you talked about what I conceive to be a failure to understand what our national interest really and truly is. I don't mean to characterize this harshly, but it seemed to be more of a realpolitik calculation of where Canadian interests lie and of pursuing those. Could you expand a little on how we seem to have gotten caught up in our mythology in terms of things like peacekeeping and multilateralism, where they have become the ends rather than the means in terms of what moves Canada forward?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I don't take realpolitik as a harsh term at all. It's a legitimate diplomatic term, and it is in fact the kind of policy we need to follow. To make it a little more polite, I would say it's a realist policy, because realpolitik has a German ring to it that upsets people.

A realist policy is exactly what we should follow. We must think in terms of our interests. I would suggest to you that we have never done that in this country. We went to war in 1914 and 1939 without considering whether or not it served our national interests. Literally, the question of national interests was never even raised. We went to war because Britain went to war, period, and that was deemed sufficient for our purposes. I don't think that was a sensible thing to do. Yes, we should have gone to war, but I would have liked it better if someone had sat down and said it would serve our economic interests, meet our values, solidify our trade relationships, or whatever. Nobody even made that kind of calculus.

Living cheek by jowl with a superpower as we do today, we absolutely must make those kinds of calculations. We have to sit down and say what our national interests are. I'm not sure what they are, but I think we need to study them and I think we need to decide what they are. Where we went wrong was precisely in the areas you pointed to: in the search for multilateralism, in the search for peacekeeping.

We looked for ways to do two things. One was to differentiate ourselves from the Americans. Peacekeeping was our thing. We make peace, they make wars. That suited the Canadian mentality. The multilateralist strain in our policy is very much what I referred to in answering Mr. Bachand. It's our attempt to try to constrain the superpowers. There was a time when there was more than one superpower. We wanted to work in ways that tied them down as much as possible. That seemed to be in our interest, and it probably was. It is in the interests of the weak to try to constrain the great. The world has changed. Now there is only one superpower, and we happen to share a continent with that superpower.

In terms of the multilateralist thrust in our policy, we're watching Europe drift further away from North America every day, it seems, and I think that multilateralist thrust is probably in serious danger. We're in an era when the bilateral relationship is going to be the absolute key for our future. The sooner we recognize that, the better. The sooner we frame our national interests around that reality, the better it will be for us, because the world exists.

I suggested three iron laws in my comments earlier. One is that we're in North America, the second is that our economy hinges on our trade with the United States, and the third is that the United States is going to defend us whether we like it or not. The simple truth is that those are the basic facts that we must live with. We can't get away from them. Let's realistically assess the situation we're in, and let's try to shape our policies around that reality.

À (1055)

The Chair: I read a very interesting piece by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times on Sunday. He talked about the fact that we are actually into World War III right now, and that World War III constitutes the fight between the world of order and the world of disorder. He characterized the world of order as the United States, Russia, the EU, China, and India. The world of disorder he characterized in three ways: failed states, rogue states, and what he called messy states, with Liberia being an example of a failed state, rogue states being ones like North Korea, Iraq and, to a certain extent, probably Iran, and messy states being ones like Pakistan. Given that this may be where the world is lining up these days and perhaps into the foreseeable future, where do you see Canada playing an important niche role in that big-picture scheme of things?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I hope we're one of the states of order, and not simply just a messy state, which is perhaps the best we could aspire to.

I don't think it's necessarily a useful role for us to always try to find a niche, to always try to differentiate ourselves. If we apply this realist calculus that I've been suggesting, I'd like to see if that serves our interests. Or are there other policies that better serve our interests, rather than trying to find a niche role? Let's have that full foreign policy review in order to determine where we can best fit. If it says “niche”, that's fine. If it says “North American nation integrated with the United States economically”, that's fine. In either case, it seems to me that our primary objective is to try to survive as an independent nation-state. To that end, we must do whatever we need to do.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor. On behalf of all of the members of the committee, I think this has been a very stimulating discussion. We certainly appreciate your insights. Another committee is taking over this room in a couple of minutes, so we should vacate it. Again, however, on behalf of the committee, thank you for being here today and for contributing to our study of Canada–U.S. defence relations.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Thank you.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.