Assessing Poilievre’s foreign policy posture

Opinion

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This article was published 02/11/2022 (1069 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Now that he has handily secured the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), I’ve been wondering what Pierre Poilievre’s thoughts are on Canadian foreign policy. To be honest, he has said precious little publicly about the subject.

At first blush, Poilievre does not appear to be well versed in matters of international diplomacy. He certainly hasn’t any experience in foreign relations in his various ministerial portfolios during the Stephen Harper period.

What he has said, though, does offer us some insight into his overall foreign policy orientation. Simply put, it focuses mostly on perceived hostile states and suggests a decidedly hardline stance.

Let’s start with pledge to halt crude oil imports from democratically deficient petrol states (all left unnamed). As his leadership website intones: “A Poilievre government will end oil imports from dictatorships that fail to meet our environmental standards or abuse human rights.”

However, he doesn’t really acknowledge or even address the significant impediments to replacing eastern Canadian imports with the construction/expansion of an oil pipeline from Alberta.

Similarly, we haven’t heard much from Poilievre when it comes to handling the thorny Canada-China relationship. Other than criticize leadership candidate Jean Charest for his previous work with China’s Huawei, the Conservative leader has not staked out a position yet on how Canada should deal with a rising China.

But if his stance on Russia is any indication, it most assuredly won’t be with kid gloves.

When it comes to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Poilievre doesn’t mince his words. “Russian President Vladimir Putin has violated every one of the West’s shared democratic principles and the world must respond with strength. Rhetoric and virtue signalling are not enough. We must take concrete action,” a February 2022 op-ed in the National Post declares.

With respect to the ongoing war in Ukraine itself, and Canada’s response thus far, he has been just as blunt. His leadership website notes Conservative MPs have been urging the Trudeau Liberals to send soon-to-be-retired Coyotes, LAVs and Bisons — along with Harpoon anti-ship missiles — to Ukraine immediately. It then goes on to highlight: “Conservatives have been calling on the government to send $10 million of lethal weapons sitting in storage to Ukraine since 2018.”

Like Harper’s dismissal of environmental matters, Poilievre is clearly an opponent of carbon taxes, no friend of federal environmental impact assessments and seems to put his faith in technological innovation as the leading solution to containing a warming climate.

His approach to international climate policy, then, appears to be guided by a healthy dose of skepticism, obstructionism and doing as little as possible to negatively impact oil-producing provinces in western Canada.

Accordingly, I can’t help but think Poilievre’s international mindset is influenced heavily by the precepts of Stephen Harper’s foreign policy outlook. That would mean an “us against them” mentality (where “them” would be Russia, China and their friends), an aversion to liberal multilateralism and the UN, and talk of moral principles and doing what is right.

It would also manifest itself in strong support for free trade deals and an open international economic system, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), Arctic sovereignty and the state of Israel. And like Harper, he will undoubtedly promise to work co-operatively and constructively with our closest ally and largest trading partner, the United States.

In line with Harper’s thinking, you might expect Poilievre to focus his attention on Latin America and the Caribbean — where Canada has vital national interests in play. It may even be more so given that his partner, Anaida Galindo, is Venezuelan and obviously well-acquainted with the region.

Unfortunately, that is likely to spell bad news for left-leaning governments in Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and, of course, Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela.

Having said that, I do wonder whether Poilievre will infuse Canadian foreign policy with as much domestic political strategizing as Harper did. I don’t have any reason to think otherwise. Indeed, Poilievre appears to be a political animal cut from the same Harper cloth.

But if that is true, he will certainly make the same mistakes that Harper made. For instance, utilizing foreign policy initiatives such as Arctic sovereignty, opposition to climate change action and increased defence spending for purposes of stoking his base and pure electoral politics — instead of a clear-headed reading of Canada’s international policy priorities.

Equally troubling was Harper’s penchant for mixing foreign policy with diaspora politics, as evidenced by his actions on Ukraine, Iran, Sri Lanka and Israel.

The central problem with politicizing Canadian foreign policy is that it jeopardizes Canada’s defensive and offensive interests, hurts our standing within multilateral arenas and damages relations with our friends and allies.

The fact of the matter is — and it’s never too late for Poilievre to learn this lesson — Canada’s foreign relations are better served when guided by thoughtful policy priorities rather than short-sighted domestic political calculations.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island and the editor of Harper’s World: The Politicization of Canadian Foreign Policy.