(Illustration by David Benque)

Sharing the world’s longest undefended border, Canada and the United States have benefited from a long history of peaceful and friendly relations, including more than 80 treaty-level defense agreements, more than 250 memoranda of understanding between the two defense departments, and approximately 145 bilateral forums in which defense matters are discussed. Yet, in recent history, during the George W. Bush/Jean Chrétien years, this relationship endured difficulties: from the recently resolved trade dispute over softwood lumber tariffs; to the banning of Canadian beef exports after a single case of mad cow disease; to the gaffe that resulted in the firing of Chrétien’s aide, Françoise Ducros, who called Bush a “moron.”

The cooling between Ottawa and Washington reached an icy low when Canada declared its steadfast opposition to the war in Iraq, and refused to partake in the war effort. Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, made it very clear how “disappointed” Bush was with Canada’s decision.

However, after Chrétien retired in December 2003, and Canada’s new Prime Minister Paul Martin took the helm, relations had begun to thaw. A priority was placed on improving bilateral relations, including expediting discussions on Canada’s participation in the missile defense system (MDS). In a nation with a long and proud history of being pacifist and non-antagonistic, this seemed to mark a divisive shift in policy, which could have drastically altered Canada’s peaceful standing in the world.

Then, six months after taking office, Martin was forced to fight for reelection and win his own mandate to govern with the confidence of the Canadian people. The election took place amongst widespread public anger and disillusion over corrupt practices in the Liberal Party after Auditor General Sheila Fraser found that the Liberal government had funneled $100 million of taxpayer money into the coffers of Liberal-friendly advertising agencies in the forms of fees and commissions.

At the June 28 elections, Martin’s party won, but only narrowly, gaining 135 out of 308 seats in parliament. Being 20 seats short of a majority means that the party will have to compromise their agenda and collaborate on policy with the other stakeholders in parliament: the Conservatives on the right, the New Democratic Party (NDP) on the left, and the pro-sovereignty, yet largely left, Bloc Québécois Party. Teetering in the balance is whether America will gain financial and logistical cooperation in its vision of a continental missile defense system, or have the door shut in its face.

The benefits of public apathy

As early as November 15, 2003, the day after Martin’s coronation ceremony in Toronto, he stressed Canada’s eagerness to participate in discussions on the Bush administration’s missile defense system, saying: “We’re talking about the defense of North America. Canada has to be at the table.”

Martin’s priority of improving bilateral relations moved up the echelons of parliament, with the establishment of a permanent cabinet committee and a House of Commons committee on Canada-United States relations. Member of Parliament Scott Brison, who defected from the Progressive Conservative Party to the Liberals, was appointed to this portfolio. When Brison ran unsuccessfully for the Progressive Conservative Party leadership in spring 2003, he advocated a far-reaching partnership with the United States for the creation of a “seamless border.”

In the past, Canada’s position on the missile defense system has wavered from outward opposition to meek caution. Although bilateral talks proceeded between Canada’s former Defense Minister John McCallum, who served in Chrétien’s cabinet, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003, they were highly secretive and substantial results were not revealed. One reason for the silence may have been the widespread disinterest among average Canadians.

In February, when I asked random people in Toronto’s diverse neighborhoods about their thoughts on Canada’s role in the missile defense system, most told me that they hadn’t heard anything about it, or that the topic didn’t interest them. Yet no one wanted to be quoted as an “uninformed” person.

A 28-year-old student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, who plans to teach high school in the fall, asked to remain anonymous and admitted that he doesn’t follow politics very closely. Queried about his country’s change in stance, he said: “I don’t know anything about the missile defense system. I don’t recall seeing a single newscast on this almost sci-fi thing that you’re describing.” When I asked him if he thought Canada should collaborate with the United States, he flatly replied: “I guess it would depend on how serious the threat would be. I don’t know.”

A residential youth worker who was attending a Valentine’s Day party, Michelle Hadida, 25, agreed that the subject hasn’t caught the attention of most Canadians. “Not many people know what’s going on,” she said. “You don’t hear about [the missile defense system] in the news. Usually people will flick on the 6 o’clock or 11 o’clock news for a quick update of what’s going on in the world, and because they’re not being exposed to this on the news, the chances of them looking it up on their own time is very slim.”

Under cover of public apathy, the issue had gained momentum in Ottawa. Canada’s most recent Defense Minister, David Pratt opposed the Chrétien government’s refusal to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq. However, he just lost his seat in parliament with his district of Nepean-Carlton, just outside of Ottawa, falling to Conservative Pierre Poilievre on Election Day.

Pratt was seen as more hawkish than his predecessor, John McCallum. In commenting on Pratt’s appointment to Defense and what could be expected, John Ibbitson of The Globe and Mail called him “a firm believer in the need for Canada to sign on to the continental missile defense system” and  “as Americanophillic as a Liberal can get.” With Pratt’s ouster, Canadians are now left in suspense, waiting to see whether Martin’s new appointment to the defense portfolio will follow Pratt’s lead and cozy up to the Americans or put more distance between the two neighbors.

Margaret Rao shows her solidarity with the New Democratic Party’s opposition to the missile defense shield by holding up one of the Party’s advertisements. Rao, who lives in Toronto, thinks most Canadians wouldn’t go along with plans for Canada to participate in this feat if the issue were more publicized.

Doubting Thomases

Back in February, activists like Margaret Rao, 51, a theologian, and mother of three young adult daughters, were worried about the public’s lack of knowledge. Seated at her home in Toronto’s little Italy neighborhood, Rao clutched an ad by the NDP outlining her party’s opposition to the missile defense system. “Paul Martin knew whom he was choosing [in appointing Pratt to the defense portfolio]. It’s already skewed towards making friends with the States,” she said. “We need to have a national debate on this. I think most Canadians wouldn’t go along with this — especially if we got the facts out.”

The facts Rao thought Canadians would take exception to include the highly questionable effectiveness of the system, in which a sensor in space discovers an object headed for the United States, ground-based infrared sensors and radar systems track it, and the United States launches a missile to intercept it. If the system worked, it would give the United States the power to protect itself from incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs), whether launched without intent, or from what the Bush administration has commonly referred to as “rogue states,” such as Iran and North Korea, which is predicted to develop the capacity to launch a missile towards the United States by 2005.

If it worked — there’s the rub. Such things also worry Alex Carter, 27, a post-graduate journalism student at Ryerson University in Toronto. In between classes, Carter took a moment to express his doubt. “I haven’t heard anything about it possibly working,” he said. “It just seems like a waste of money, so until they can prove that it works and prove that there’s a threat, then I think we’d be doing it only to appease the Americans.”  

Although the United States has a long history of researching the viability of ballistic missile defense systems dating back to the 1940s, no definitive results have been yielded. President Richard Nixon briefly deployed a system in the mid-1970s that was then abandoned due to technical difficulties. President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) of the 1980s revived the concept of ballistic missile defense. Essentially, SDI was based on exotic, futuristic space technologies and ambitiously geared towards countering the entire nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union. Due to technological problems, high cost-estimates, and the end of the Cold War, the initiative was never implemented.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, some see missile defense as unjustifiable. Such is the opinion of 24 year-old artist Krystal Ann Kraus, who has been banned from entering the United States due to rallies she’s attended in opposition to U.S. free trade agreements with the Americas. Unwinding with a Smirnoff Ice at an Irish pub in the upscale Yonge and Eglinton area of Toronto, she felt that a clear threat to justify pursuit of such an endeavor did not exist.

“It’s silly to think that we should spend our resources and energy in tax dollars in fighting some weird, almost ‘cartoonish’ type of character, like power rangers taking over space,” she said. “Altron’s not the enemy. Most poor nations can’t even dream about occupying that realm. It’s an area of the rich, and the rich are going to control it because they’re the ones with the funds to get up there.”

The Council for a Livable World, a U.S.-based organization advocating arms control, points to an analysis prepared by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in which two official reports five years apart reached a remarkably similar conclusion, affirming that missile defense deployment is “a rush to failure.”

The Center for Arms Control compared a 1998 study issued by a panel headed by former Air Force Chief of Staff Larry Welch and a report released by the General Accounting Office (GAO) in June 2003. Both reports suggest that political pressures are driving the missile defense program, leading to premature deployment of an inadequately tested system. The GAO report explains: “Because of time pressures, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), must include components that have not been demonstrated as mature and ready for system integration into a particular element …Testing to date has provided only limited data for determining whether the system will work as intended in 2004.”

Fear makes friends

In the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton agreed in principle to the need for a missile defense system, in terms of policy, he sought to remain consistent with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Intended to set limits on defensive missile systems, the ABM Treaty is credited for what has been approximately 30 years of nuclear stability around the world. However, under pressure from members of Congress, the National Missile Defense Act was passed in 1999, allowing for the deployment of a missile defense system as soon as technologically possible.

Then in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, amid a climate of fear, Bush scrapped the ABM Treaty on December 13, 2001, and gave an impassioned speech. Of the historic treaty, he said: “It hinders our government’s ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks. I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.”

Thus in 2002, the United States began work on adding components to allow for layered and overlapping missile defense coverage. On December 17, 2002, Bush announced the United States would deploy an initial operational ballistic missile defense (BMD) system for the defense of North America by the fall of 2004. Costs, already totaling $91 billion on the missile defense system over the past two decades — with exorbitant spending by successive Republican- and Democrat-led administrations — will continue to rise as progress is made.

While an understanding exists which exempts Canada from bearing any costs of the system as long as it allows its airspace to be used, this principle has recently been called into question. On Sunday, February 22, 2004, in a Question Period segment on CTV News, former Defense Minister Pratt refused to rule out the possibility that Canada would make a cash contribution.

York University Law student Stephen Tolfo, 24, feels that it’s in Canada’s best long-term interest to be complicit, regardless of any associated costs. A long-standing supporter of bilateral defense arrangements, he’s adamant that people need to remember there is a real threat. “Bush knows what he’s talking about, and as Canadians, we can’t afford to sit out and expect the Americans to take care of us when something goes wrong,” he said. “We need to be pro-active. The key is that it’s a defense system, not an offense system.”

An additional pressure is the fear that Canada’s role in the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which was established in 1958 to monitor and defend North American airspace, would be diminished if it doesn’t sign on. Already, progress on the discussions has resulted in an agreement in principle that MDS operations would be placed under the auspices of NORAD, providing that Canada endorses the controversial system.

Protecting Canada or gaining points with the United States?

On February 5, 2004, the C. Warren Goldring Annual Lecture on Canada-United States relations at the Royal Ontario Museum in the heart of downtown Toronto drew a distinguished crowd of guests, including representatives from numerous conglomerates and Canada’s largest banks that line the city’s financial center on Bay Street. In a lecture theater filled to capacity, Leon Panetta, Clinton’s former chief of staff, delivered a speech, “The Challenge in Washington: Governing by Leadership or Crisis.”

Panetta, like many others, is concerned with the effectiveness of the system. Asked how legitimate the threat posed by so-called rogue states is and what, if any, role Canada should play in the initiative, Panetta cautioned: “Ultimately, I think we do have to be concerned about what can happen with terrorism and the weapons that can be used. But I do believe right now, that to embark on a missile defense system with all the costs associated with it, and with the questionable technology that’s involved with it, would not be in our interest.”

“Let’s be careful,” he warned,  “particularly at a time of a $500 billion annual deficit, in throwing more money at systems that ultimately can be proven as unable to protect our security.”

Despite such warnings from experienced statesmen, there is strong support for the pursuit of a missile defense system from influential corporations on both sides of the border who stand to make money from it. Pressure on the Canadian side comes from Canadian aerospace companies and business lobby groups such as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which has set up a CEO Action Group to push for closer business and military ties with the United States. Derek Burney, chief of staff to former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and current president of CAE Inc., is seen as a key stakeholder. His company is already supplying U.S. aerospace and defense giant Boeing with software systems for the missile defense system.  

While corporations are behind it, the government’s possible public expenditure on the system has Canadian citizens expressing concern. Advocating a social justice agenda, Barry Weisleder, of the activist oriented NDP Socialist Caucus, feels “it’s an incredibly lavish waste of funds.” Demonstrating outside the Israeli Consulate on Bloor Street West in opposition of the controversial wall that Israel is erecting in the occupied West Bank, he lamented: “There’s no evidence that such a system is even capable of bringing down a barrage of incoming missiles; but even if it were, it’s an attempt by the U.S. to seize control — not only of planet earth, but also of outer space. What an incredible waste of money at a time when hospitals and schools are crumbling and social programs are depleted and people are dying in the cold outdoors for lack of housing. It’s just an abomination.”

Professor Ron Stagg, chair of Ryerson University’s history department, is concerned that “the issue hasn’t been debated to the extent that it should in a democratic society like Canada.” This viewpoint was echoed in a May 2003 segment of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio Commentary broadcast. Steven Staples, a military analyst with the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute, an organization that promotes principles of social justice in grassroots organizations, pointed out one of Martin’s shortcomings on the missile defense program: “He doesn’t talk much about missile threats to Canada. Instead, he seems to talk about improving relations with the Americans.”

This point has been a crucial one for a substantial amount of Canadians who see the threat to the North American continent as largely elusive. Richard Gwyn, an acclaimed Canadian political affairs writer, argues, “The missile defense program itself, is the dumbest military idea since the French nobles at Agincourt put on such heavy armor they couldn’t move in their saddles. It will provide an unworkable defense — even rigged tests most often fail against a non-existent threat. What ‘rogue state’ is going to commit suicide by lobbing one missile, even if it actually had it, at Washington?”

Paul Hamel, of Science for Peace, a Canada-based organization concerned about issues of peace, justice, and the environment, is concerned that Canada’s decision will hinge on appeasing the Americans, and become a make-up gesture for the government’s refusal to support the war in Iraq. “I think that the definitive goal of blindly signing on to such a useless and unjustified endeavor is simply to patch up relations with our neighbors south of the border who, quite frankly, still hold a grudge against us,” he said.

Similarly, Linda McQuaig, a Toronto-based author and political commentator, also sees the politics of appeasement at play here. She writes, “If Ottawa does join the missile project, it will undoubtedly insist that the decision had absolutely nothing to do with appeasing Washington, that we — entirely on our own — came up with the idea of abandoning Canada’s longstanding commitment to international arms control.”

Canadians becoming more … American?

McQuaig presents a compelling argument. After all, Canada is a founding member of the Missile Technology Control Regime that was established in 1987 as a means to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction proliferation by controlling the transfer of missile equipment, material, and related technologies. Canada was also instrumental in the development of the 2002 Hague Code of Conduct against ballistic missile proliferation, the first multilateral agreement that established principles regarding ballistic missiles.

Scott Peterson, 42, a former stockbroker and current journalism student at Ryerson University, feels that Canada’s role in the missile defense system is highly problematic. “I think it breaks a lot of treaties we have. I think it’s isolationist and protectionist in a global society and I think it’s just wrong,” he said.

Moreover, concern exists over how support for the missile defense system will threaten and reverse hard fought gains in the struggle to ensure that nations comply with non-proliferation policies. Llyod Axworthy, a former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister and current director and CEO of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Colombia, and Michael Byers, a professor of law and director of Canadian Studies at Duke University, write, “There’s good reason to think that support for BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense] would curtail Canada’s foreign policy options. In fact, it would entail an abrupt change in our policy on the non-proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction, moving from a model of multilateral regulation and cooperation to a confrontational approach based on the threat of force.”  

Furthermore, a majority of Canadians feel that Canada, popularly labeled “a decaffeinated version of the United States” by Canadian political commentator Charlotte Gray, should struggle to level out the playing field with the United States to better assert itself as an independent nation with distinct values.

In an article featured in Maclean’s magazine on February 9, 2004, titled “Hope you Lose, eh,” an exclusive poll found that a mere 15 percent of Canadians support Bush’s re-election in November 2004. Jonathon Gatehouse wrote, “Despite a spate of polls showing a broad desire for improved relations with the United States after the often rocky Chrétien years, there is a sense that this administration isn’t one we want to do business with.”

Barry W. Cook of Toronto personified this concern in the opinion/editorial section of The Globe and Mail on November 19, 2003. Just as Martin was set to take the reins of government, he expressed apprehension over the extent to which U.S. influence permeates Canada. He wrote, “Canada is about to retire a Prime Minister and gain a CEO [referring to Martin’s business background] … Here’s hoping the head office of Canada (Limited) is not Washington, nor its chairman in Crawford, Texas.”

Such an editorial points to a popular cultural divide that many Canadians feel. The question remains whether they will demand that distinct policies be adopted in order to affirm Canada’s traditional commitment to the principles of multilateralism, disarmament, peace, and the rule of law. Yet perhaps Jonathon Gatehouse of Maclean’s put it perfectly when he wrote, “In Canada, there is still no surer kiss of death for a politician than caving into American pressure.”

With the policy-making authority of the Liberals being drastically curtailed in light of the recent election, Martin is now in the unique position of looking left or right as he vies for unabashed cooperation from the other parties in Parliament in order to stay in power and pass legislation.

While Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, affirmed that he would continue his vigorous campaign against Canada’s participation in the missile defense system, along with Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Québécois Party, whose platform also opposed such collaboration, Martin may have to look towards the Conservative Party, Canada’s version of what in effect is the “Republicans-lite” for support. Its leader, Stephen Harper, is the only politician who campaigned vociferously in support of Canada’s participation in Bush’s pet project.

After a hotly contested race, Martin and Harper may end up forming an uncanny alliance on the issue of missile defense. The two dignified politicians who spent much of their time on the campaign trail trading insults and jabs may end up standing shoulder to shoulder with one another, gazing south with stars and stripes in their eyes.

STORY INDEX

ORGANIZATIONS>

Department of National Defense and Canadian Forces
URL: http://www.forces.gc.ca

United States Department of Defense
URL: http://dod.mil

Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars
URL: http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=1420

Council for a Livable World
URL: http://www.clw.org

Liu Institute for Global Issues
URL: http://www.ligi.ubc.ca

Science for Peace
URL: http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca

Brookings Institute
URL: http://www.brookings.edu