Two Freedoms. Hugh Segal
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Publisher’s Message
To shed light on today’s cultural, social, economic, and political issues that are shaping our future as Canadians, Dundurn’s Point of View Books offer readers the informed opinions of knowledgeable individuals.
Whatever the topic, the author of a Point of View book is someone we’ve invited to address a vital topic because their front-line experience, arising from personal immersion in the issue, gives readers an engaging perspective, even though a reader may not ultimately reach all the same conclusions as the author.
Our publishing house is committed to framing the hard choices facing Canadians in a way that will spur democratic debate in our country. For over forty years, Dundurn has been “defining Canada for Canadians.” Now our Point of View Books, under the direction of general editor J. Patrick Boyer, take us a further step on this journey of national discovery.
Each author of a Point of View book has an important message, and a definite point of view about an issue close to their heart. Some Point of View Books will resemble manifestos for action, others will shed light on a crucial subject from an alternative perspective, and a few will be concise statements of a timely case needing to be clearly made.
But whatever the topic or whomever the author, all these titles will be eye-openers for Canadians, engaging issues that matter to us as citizens.
J. Kirk Howard
President
Dundurn Press
A Note from the General Editor
A century ago Canada was mired in a devastating world war that our country’s government had no option but to join because in that era Britain’s foreign policy became our colonial fate.
Today we are still wedded to collective security for military purposes, but as a fully sovereign nation state, a founding member of the United Nations, and partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Today we still remain affiliated with other countries under the British Crown, but in a Commonwealth of free-standing nations rather than as a colonial dependency, and our global affiliations have been extended to other French-speaking countries also, through the international organization of La Francophonie. Canadian foreign policy is now made in Ottawa, not elsewhere, as shown by the change in our military deployment against the “Islamic State” terrorist organization in Syria and Iraq, and in our environmental stance at the Paris conference on global warming, as a result of a different government coming to office in late 2015.
With this freedom of action comes higher responsibility. As masters of our own fate in a global context, we are no longer easy riders on the backs of others. The gravity of our geopolitical position, as an increasingly marginal player on the dynamic world stage with many new and growing powers, demands a clear and dispassionate review of our present circumstances. For Canada’s national aspirations and our partnerships for global security to be fulfilled, clarity of analysis needs to be combined with a stance that reflects Canadian values, in a balanced way that our government can advance and our people support.
In this context, Hugh Segal offers a most timely contribution. With the Trudeau government and Canadians generally at a point of departure in the conduct of public affairs, our foreign policy in particular can benefit from Segal’s cogent reappraisal. He has gained perspective for this refreshing point of view from both personal front-line activity and the hard lessons of Canadian national experience. A veteran of Canadian political life who came to master the intricacies of public policy, Hugh Segal sets down important new markers to help Canada stay true to its national imperatives and values in a radically transforming world.
Rather than succumbing to a fatalism that sees our Canadian future dictated by others, or yielding to a determinism that holds Canadian action is constrained by forces beyond our control, Hugh Segal’s rich seasoning in Canada’s external relations inspire him “to confront the cult of foreign policy inevitability.”
J. Patrick Boyer
General Editor
Point of View Books
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Academics write, teach, and research about foreign policy; diplomats and foreign service officers are posted in pleasant, unpleasant, or dangerous spots worldwide; and politicians learn quickly about the intricacies and surprises to be found in foreign relations. Men and women in uniform, however, make the ultimate commitment of their lives and wellbeing in support of foreign policy when their deployment is required.
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I dedicate Two Freedoms to Trooper Max Dankner, of the famed Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, a small, historic regiment (formed in 1872 in Ottawa) that was among the Canadian Forces vanguard that began the liberation of Sicily and Italy in July of 1943. Max is robust and ninety-one years young at the time of writing. He is my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother. In battles at places like Piazza Armerina, Pachino, Agira, Catenanuovo and Regalbuto, Miglionico, and Rimini, not to mention Ortona, among others, the Canadians met strong enemy resistance as they advanced north. There were many Canadian wounded and dead. Uncle Max was one of the more seriously wounded, mentioned in dispatches and recommended for a decoration in the battle where he took the shrapnel hit. After recovering in an Allied armed forces hospital, Max continued on through Belgium and in support of the Canadian liberation of the Netherlands before returning home to Montreal in early 1946.
His generation of Canadians faced the most serious threat to our core freedoms and those of our allies. They volunteered, they served, they sacrificed, and they liberated an entire civilization from a horrific, murderous, efficient, and determined tyranny. There would be no freedoms to defend, promote, or advance without the courage, loyalty, and service of the thousands of Canadians, from all walks of life, like my Uncle Max.
Foreword
Hugh Segal has written a clear and compelling book about a complex and confused problem — why has Canada seemingly lost its way in making a foreign policy with impact and what can be done to fix the rot? His answer is summarized in a thesis that is simple to state but tremendously difficult to implement: Canada must have a foreign policy of purpose, anchored by the two overarching values of freedom from fear and freedom from want. “It is time,” he writes, “to engage the best minds of every society and culture to shape a foreign policy deployed against the root causes of fear and want and the way in which they spawn violence, war, disorder, and dysfunction.”
Segal’s analysis is informed by a wealth of experience. He has held senior positions in the governments of Ontario and Canada; headed the Institute for Research in Public Policy (one of Canada’s best-known think tanks); contested the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party; and served in the Senate, where he chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Senate Committee on Anti-Terrorism. He was chosen as Canada’s Special Envoy to the Commonwealth and Canada’s representative on the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. More recently, following his resignation from the Senate, he has become the Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto.
This impressive background in politics, government, Parliament, academe, and the not-for-profit community gives him the insight to make a non-partisan but thoroughly devastating critique of the West’s record in foreign policy. Highlighting the crisis in Syria, he contends that the Obama administration, the United Kingdom’s coalition government under David Cameron, and the French government