Parliament and Foreign Policy, 1960
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| Author | Robert A. Spencer |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500403 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Parliament
and
Foreign
Policy,
1960
ROBERT
A.
SPENCER*
A
Tone
time
it
was
fashionable
to
judge
the
performance
of
parliament
in
the
realm of
foreign affairs
by
setting
the
pages
of
the
House
of
Commons
debates dealing
with
foreign
policy
against
the total for
the
session.
By
this
stand-
ard
the
third
session
of
the
24th
Parliament,
which
opened
on
January
14
and
was
prorogued
on
August
10,
ranked
high. In
the
debate
on
the
address
foreign
affairs
vied
for
attention
with
unemployment and
economic
prospects.
There was
a
three-day
general
debate
in
February
and
a
two-day debate
on
the
esti-
mates
in
July,
a
special
debate
on
apartheid,
and
one
on
a
reso-
lution
authorizing
participation
in
the
Congo.
In
addition
to
the
defence
debates
there
were
some
important
ministerial
state-
ments
on
collateral
questions
such
as
trade
which
were
often
followed
by
brief
comments
from
across
the
floor.
And
there
was
an
unprecedently
heavy
and
almost
daily
barrage
of
ques-
tions directed
at
the
Secretary
of
State
for
External
Affairs
or
the
Prime
Minister.
Mr. Green
was
facing
his
first
full
session
as
foreign
minister.
When
it opened
he
had
had
six
months
in
office
in
which
to
find
his
feet,
and,
with
an
"old
pro"
at
the
helm,
the
Opposition no
longer
felt
constrained
to
withhold
its
fire
as
during
the
brief
interlude under
Sidney
Smith.
The
course
of
Canadian
foreign
policy
as
reflected in
parlia-
ment
during
its
146-day
session
served
to
underline
a
statement
made
by
Mr.
St.
Laurent
more
than a
dozen
years
ago,
that
Canada
was
inextricably
involved
in
the
mainstream
of
world
politics.
It
tended
to
demonstrate
above all
that
Canadian
foreign
policy was
at
the
mercy
of
circumstance
and
situations
beyond
Canadian control.
The
opening
of
parliament
coincided
with
the high
tide of
international
optimism.
The
Berlin
crisis
had
been
averted
despite
the
failure
at
Geneva,
and
Mr.
Khrush-
chev's
barnstorming
across
the
United
States
had
opened
the
*
Department
of
History, University
of Toronto.
312
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
way
to
the
summit
and
to
Mr.
Eisenhower's
visit
to
the
Soviet
Union.
The
voluntary
moratorium
on
nuclear
tests
remained
in
force.
The
U.N. General
Assembly
had
shown
a
marked
willing-
ness
on
the
part
of
the
U.S.S.R.
to
make
a
reality
of
co-existence.
The
ten-nation
disarmament
commission
was
about
to get
down
to work
in Geneva in
an
atmosphere
which
lent
support
to
the
belief
that
real progress
would
be
made and
plausibility
to
those
who
marched under
the
banner
of
nuclear
disarmament.
This
less
tense
atmosphere
affected
parliamentary
debate.
Mr. Green,
the
press
reported,
exuded
optimism,
and
indeed loudly
pro-
claimed
it.
But
Mr.
Khrushchev's
speech
of
January
14,
the
day
parliament
reassembled,
with
its
confident
announcement
of
Soviet
passage
into
the
missile age, was
not lost
sight
of,
especi-
ally
by
the
Liberal
ranks.
By
the
end
of
the
session
the
picture
had
changed
drastically.
With
the
collapse
of
the
summit
and
the scuttling
of
the
dis-
armament talks,
with
the
U.S.S.R.
brandishing
threats
of
rockets
in
support
of Castro
and
of equally
explosive
intervention
in
the
Congo,
the
tone
of
parliamentary
debates
changed
from
exag-
gerated
complacency
to
a
perhaps
over-fearful
anxiety.
The
shifting
pattern
of
East-West
relations
was
the
dominating
in-
fluence
in
Canadian
foreign
policy.
It
affected
directly
such
complex
problems
as
disarmament
and
defence co-operation
with
the
United
States
and
in
NATO,
and
scarcely
less Canada's
trading
relations
with
Europe
and
the future
of
the
Common-
wealth,
especially
in
Africa.
These
and
other
problems
were
discussed
at
various
stages
during
the
session.
The
following
pages
constitute
an
attempt
to
see
how
and
from
what
angles
they
were
dealt with
by
parliament.
Traditionally,
parliament
is
a
forum
in which
the
Government
explains
its
policies
and
the
Opposition
criticizes
them;
but
as
a
wide
range
of
opinion
is
represented,
an examination of
the
debates
also
illuminates
Canadian
attitudes
towards
current
problems.
In
the
throne
speech,
about
one-quarter
of
which
was devoted
to
foreign affairs,
the
government indicated
its
major
pre-
occupation
with
the
assertion
that
a
primary
goal
was
"the
achievement
of
the greatest
possible
measure
of
controlled dis-
armament."'
In
the
ensuing
debate,
once
Mr.
Pearson
got
be-
1
Canada.
House
of Commons
Debates,
January
14,
1960,
p.
2.
These
references
are
supplied
to
assist
any
who
might
wish
to
follow
the
course
of
the
debates themselves.
All
references
are to the
daily
edition.
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