Exceptional Circumstances. James Bartleman
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Quebec from declaring independence from Canada?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Then I’d put national security ahead of national unity.”
“Does that mean you would favour using force to keep Quebec a part of Canada?”
“No I wouldn’t. If the people of Quebec want to create their own country, they should be allowed to do so as long as it was done in a democratic and peaceful way.”
“Then what do you mean when say you would put national security ahead of national unity?”
“I mean that national security as defined as the defence of Canada against external threats and domestic terrorism should trump national unity. And that’s because the Quebec issue is an internal and not an external problem. Quebec’s place in Confederation is something Canadians and Quebeckers have to sort out peacefully among themselves.”
“Would you put human rights ahead of national unity?”
“No I wouldn’t because the suspension of human rights might be needed someday to safeguard national unity. National security, national unity, and human rights should constitute the proper order of priority.”
“Now let’s take another tack. Assume the Department accepted you as one of its Foreign Service officers, and posted you abroad to a country overseas. Let’s call it country X. Let’s say country X is in the Third World, maybe in one of those former colonies which are just now joining the United Nations as independent countries. What if you received instructions from the Department to do something your conscience told you was wrong? What would you do?”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Ah the specifics. The devil is always in the details. Now let’s say you were instructed to accept information from a security institution in country X that a security institution of the Canadian government needed. For the sake of argument, let’s say it was the RCMP but you knew the information had been obtained through torture. They do a lot of torturing in those countries, Mr. Cadotte. It’s hard to do business with certain countries without getting your hands dirty, Mr. Cadotte.”
“No I wouldn’t accept it. That would be contrary to everything I was brought up to believe.”
“You mean you would refuse to carry out instructions that would violate your moral compass? Even if all that was involved was going down to headquarters of a foreign security institution to pick up a sealed package of information and making sure it was delivered to the Canadian agency that wanted it? Even if was to help the RCMP whose mandate includes protecting Canada and Canadians against terrorism, espionage, and issues of a similar nature?”
“I wouldn’t do it if I had reasonable grounds to believe the information had been extracted through mistreatment or torture. The RCMP can do its own dirty work.”
“It’s not that easy. The RCMP doesn’t have liaison officers in every country of the world. It relies on members of the Department to do a lot of its messenger work.”
“I still wouldn’t do it.”
“But what if the Department, in its wisdom, told you that the information you were to pick up was from a foreign security agency that routinely tortured its prisoners. And what if the information was needed to protect Canadian property and lives? Would you do it?”
“With respect sir, there’s no morally acceptable answer to your question.”
“But we live in the real world, Mr. Cadotte. Anyone wanting to work in the Department sooner or later will be faced with issues like the one I raised. Please answer my question.”
From the tone of Longshaft’s voice, I was sure I would fail the oral exam if I didn’t at least make an effort to answer and tried to temporize. “Not just to protect Canadian property and lives,” I said. “The bar wouldn’t be high enough.”
“But what if you were told it was to safeguard Canada’s national security, which you have just argued trumped national unity and human rights as foreign policy priorities?”
“In exceptional circumstances like those, maybe I would,” I said, aware that I was now wading into deep dirty waters. “But I would need to know more.”
“What if I told you the information could stop terrorists from exploding a miniature nuclear bomb in downtown Toronto and killing tens of thousands of people?”
“That’s a far-fetched example but I’d definitely be on side. Everybody would be on side.”
“But what if it wasn’t to prevent a disaster like that, but to save one Canadian life?”
“I wouldn’t do it. The moral cost of torturing someone to save one life, even if Canadians weren’t he ones doing the torturing, would be too high.”
“Ah! Now we are getting into moral costs. What do you understand by that term?”
“I mean the corruption of character.”
“Personal or national?”
“Both.”
“Now, what if the information could save ten Canadian lives?”
“Still too high.”
“How many lives would you need to save to accept the information?”
“The circumstances would have to be exceptional.”
“There you go again, Mr. Cadotte, invoking exceptional circumstances. According to your file, you are Roman Catholic and were once an altar boy. Now despite your Christian upbringing, you claim everything depends on the circumstances. Are you a relativist? Don’t you believe in absolute values? Your church expects its members to accept absolute moral values. I think you are stalling, Mr. Cadotte. How many lives saved would make the use of torture exceptional, Mr. Cadotte?”
“Maybe one hundred lives?”
“Why not fifty?”
“My moral compass would allow me to accept one hundred lives saved but not fifty.”
“But the moral compass of someone else, another Canadian Foreign Service officer for example, might allow him to accept fifty?”
“Maybe.”
“Ten?”
“Maybe ten for some people. Maybe a thousand for someone else. It would depend on their definition of exceptional circumstances and the moral compass of the person concerned.”
“What if the Department expected you to do things not involving torture that were in Canada’s national interest but were of doubtful morality?”
I had no idea where Longshaft was going with this line of questioning and looked around the room at the other board members to gauge their reactions. Hunter was slouched forward in his chair, a faint smile on his lips, concentrating his gaze on his clasped hands stretched out on the table in front of him. The others had been watching me intently ever since Longshaft had started asking me questions, like so many hungry cats observing a mouse caught in a trap.
“Could you be more specific?”
“We live in the real world, Mr. Cadotte. Have you heard the old expression? I imagine you have, ‘A diplomat is an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country.’ That’s an exaggeration of course. After all, diplomacy relies on honest dealing to accomplish its ends, but not always. Sometimes we are expected to lie a little or a lot to advance and protect Canada’s national interests. We live in an imperfect world, Mr. Cadotte. Are you aware, that in many countries of the Third World, Canadian diplomats help Canadian companies bribe local officials to award them contracts even though the costs of the bribes are passed on to the people of those countries? And that in many of those countries the mass of the people live in grinding poverty and can ill afford to pay the added costs? The diplomats do it because the contracts make money for the Canadian companies and provide jobs to Canadian workers. And when they