The Canadian Isolationist Tradition
| Author | Robert Bothwell |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209905400106 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Essay |
ROBERT
BOTHWELL
The
Canadian
isolationist
tradition
C
ANADIAN
POLITICS
IS
NOT
HEAVILY
ENDOWED
WITH
APHORISMS
OR
memorable
phrases.
This
is
understandable.
Aphorisms
come
from
histo-
ry,
and
much
of
Canada's
present
consists
of
running
away
from
its
past.
Yet
there
are
a
few sayings
that
linger.
'The
twentieth
century
belongs
to
Canada'
was
the
product
of
the
silver-tongued
Sir
Wilfrid
Laurier,
to
which
present-day
Canadians
are
tempted
to
reply,
'Well,
maybe the
twenty-first
century.'
Mackenzie
King,
Laurier's
successor,
contributed
'conscription if
necessary
but
not
necessarily
conscription." There
is
no
answer
to
this
one,
but
the
phrase
lingers in
the
annals
of
circumlocution
if
not
statesmanship. And then
there
is,
'We
live
in
a
fire-proof
house,
far
from
inflammable
materials.'
This
gem,
pithy,
vivid,
and
concise,
a
model
of
the
aphorist's art,
was
uttered
in
1924
by
Canada's delegate to the
League
of
Nations,
Senator
Raoul
Dandurand.
2
Long
forgotten,
it
may
be
in
for
a
new
lease
on
life,
for
it
says
more
about
Canada's
foreign
policy
than
most Canadians would
like
to
think.
More
familiar,
if
less
elegant
(and
certainly
less
comprehensible),
is
the
term
'Pearsonian
diplomacy.'
Its
user
is
immediately
identified
as
a
Cana-
dian,
for
only
in
Canada
does
the
memory
of
Canada's
only
Nobel
Peace
Prize
winner spring
to
mind
as
a
definition
of
a
particular approach
to
for-
Professor
of
History
University
of
Toronto
1
Canada,
House
of
Commons,
Debates,
so
June
1942,3236.
2
Quoted
in
C.P.
Stacey,
Canada
and
the
Age
of
Conflict.
2:
The
Mackenzie
King
Era
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press
1981),
61.
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