The Golden Age
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400118 |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| Author | Adam Chapnick |
| Subject Matter | Over the Transom |
The golden age
A Canadian foreign policy paradox
We have under-rated Canada’s quality in the past…. I believe that
the strength and wisdom of her contribution in international
discussions and actions after the war will likewise surprise us. The
fact is that Canada has ‘grown up’ in the last few years, despite all her
internal difficulties; she has found herself. Some of her Ministers
have marked ability. There is also in Ottawa a group of high officials
who are still comparatively young—mostly in their early or mid
forties—and whose influence over Canadian policy is and will
continue to be at least as important as that of Ministers, whose
tenure of office is more precarious. They are the heads of
Government Departments and other official bodies. They are able,
enlightened and forceful. If we do not discourage them, but on the
contrary encourage them as well as their Ministers to be our
colleagues in affairs, we shall find them good allies.1
Adam Chapnick teaches defence studies at the Canadian Forces College. He would like to
thank Véronique La Rue-Constantineau and Kaitlin Bardswich for their research assistance,
Norman Hillmer and Hector Mackenzie for their counsel, and the journal’s anonymous
reviewers for their helpful feedback.
1 Memorandum by Malcolm MacDonald containing “some thoughts on the post-war
position of the British Commonwealth of Nations,” British war cabinet, 22 March 1943,
in the National Archives of the United Kingdom, Dominion Office papers, DO35 1838.
| International Journal | Winter 2008-09 | 205 |
| Adam Chapnick |
In 2003’s While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World, author
Andrew Cohen bemoaned the decline of a once-great nation. During what he
described as the golden age of foreign policy (the 1940s and 1950s), Canada
punched above its weight in global affairs and received remarkable
international recognition for doing so. Having entered the 21st century,
Ottawa had lost its focus, and commitment, to the world around it.
The deliberately provocative book—which included a series of policy
prescriptions aimed at reinvigorating Canada’s global presence—was largely
well received, making the one prominent critical review all the more notable.
Political scientist Don Munton disputed the extent of Canada’s supposed
decline vigorously, noting that the golden age was, in relative and quantifiable
terms, not as lustrous as While Canada Slept had claimed. Cohen responded,
and Munton issued a further rebuttal that offered insight into the basis of
their passionate disagreement: “I suspect that what some observers find
remarkable about the ‘Golden Age,’” he wrote, “has less to do with the
resources and dollars and more to do with the character and premises and
ideals of the policies then pursued.”2 The issue, it seems, was not just
whether there had been a period of enlightenment, but what its existence
would, or should, imply.
The Cohen-Munton dialogue revisited a long-standing issue of
contention in the writing and understanding of Canada’s national history.
The term golden age, first formally referred to in 1967 by the inaugural
principal of York University’s Glendon College, Escott Reid, (he originally
called it both the “golden age” and the “golden decade”) has typically been
invoked rhetorically by scholars, journalists, and policy practitioners in efforts
to challenge Canadians to reinvest and reengage in world affairs. Its literal
meaning has evolved over time, as have its implications and related
recommendations for action. Understanding the historiography of the
golden age is crucial to making sense of the divergences and discrepancies
that have emerged over the last 40 years. If restoring the aura of the 1940s
and 1950s is indeed a long-standing national aspiration, and not all of the
evidence suggests that it is or even should be, Canada will be faced with a
2 Don Munton, “Myths of the golden age,” Canadian Foreign Policy 12, no. 1 (spring
2005): 176. To follow the dispute from its beginnings, see Andrew Cohen, While Canada
Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2003);
Munton, review of While Canada Slept, by Andrew Cohen, Canadian Foreign Policy 11,
no. 3 (spring 2004): 124-28; and Cohen, “Response to book review of While Canada
Slept,” Canadian Foreign Policy 12, no.1 (spring 2005): 172-74.
| 206 | Winter 2008-09 | International Journal |
| The golden age |
number of significant challenges. Not all of them are within the
government’s control, nor are they all politically appealing.
To summarize, during the golden age, international circumstances, the
domestic political environment, and popular attitudes at home were all
compatible with the pursuit of a Canadian foreign policy that served a widely
accepted definition of the national interest to an unprecedented, exceptional
(and
likely
unrepeatable)
extent.3
Public
support
for
engaged
internationalism—the decline of which has been lamented repeatedly by
national commentators—was certainly a factor, but paradoxically, the era was
also profoundly elitist in spirit: Canadians were relatively passive supporters
of their government’s worldly activities.
BACKGROUND
Popular thinking about the golden age began in earnest at Ottawa’s Château
Laurier on 1 February 1967. Reid, a former president of the Canadian
Institute of International Affairs and a well-regarded retired diplomat, had
agreed to give the keynote address at the annual dinner of the Canadian
Centenary Council, an organization that had been established in 1960 by a
group of nationalist intellectuals and business executives to rally support for
the celebration of Canada’s hundredth birthday. He called his speech
“Canada in world affairs: Opportunities of the next decade.” In it, he
proposed that Ottawa revitalize its international reputation by becoming a
global leader in development assistance and in improving relations between
the western world and communist China. “There was, I think, a golden age
in Canadian foreign policy,” he said, “a period when, because of a peculiar set
of circumstances, we in Canada became on certain great issues of world
affairs, one of an inner group of three countries which moulded the shape
of the future.” That period lasted roughly a decade, from the fall of France
until about 1951. It was made possible by the power gap that had been created
in the international community after the collapse of the French military, but
3 Regardless of whether one accepts his comments as genuine indicators of the
national interest or merely social constructions that resonated with Canadians, there
can be little doubt that the principles outlined by Louis St. Laurent in his 1947 Gray
lecture served as the standard interpretation of Canadian interests in world affairs at
the time. See St. Laurent, The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1947).
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| Adam Chapnick |
also because Canadians were prepared, able, and willing to make a difference
when presented with the opportunity.4
There was media coverage of the speech, but it was hardly extensive, nor
was it focused on the past. Rob Rupert of the Ottawa Citizen reported the
next day that Reid had challenged Canadians to become leaders in the
struggle to reduce global poverty. The call “to return to the atmosphere of
‘the golden age’” was dealt with in just two of his 16 paragraphs (all of which
could be found on just the 48th page of the paper). Four days later, the Ottawa
Journal ran an editorial on Reid’s message that did not even mention the
1940s, focusing exclusively on the call to more than triple Canada’s
contribution to foreign aid over the next five years. A full week after the
address, the Globe and Mail also published a commentary. It praised Reid
personally, noted his reference to the golden age, and encouraged Canadians
to adopt his “blueprint for intelligent citizenship in the world.” The lecture
was not mentioned by Québec’s most prominent print journalists, in the
Toronto Star, or in the Winnipeg Free Press, and does not seem to have been
noted anywhere else across the country. It did, however, receive sufficiently
more exposure among the academic and policymaking elite when it was
republished (with minor modifications) almost immediately in International
Journal under the title “Canadian foreign policy, 1967-1977: A second golden
decade.”5
That Cohen’s notion of the golden age in While Canada Slept diverged
somewhat from Reid’s original definition—particularly in terms of its
timeline—is to be expected. The latter’s portrayal of the past was coloured by
his experience in the Department of External Affairs. Reid had been a major
player in the negotiations to create the International Civil Aviation
Organization (1943-44), in the preparatory conferences of the United Nations
4 Escott Reid, “Canada in world affairs: Opportunities of the next decade,” address at the
annual dinner of the Canadian Centenary Council, Château Laurier, 1 February 1967, 4.
5 Rob Rupert, “Canada urged to take leader’s role in war on poverty as centennial task,”
Ottawa Citizen, 2 February 1967, 48; “The most awesome problem confronting modern
man,” Ottawa Journal, 6 February 1967, 6; “Dividends of experience,” Globe and Mail,
8 February 167, 6; Escott Reid, “Canadian foreign policy, 1967-1977: A second golden
decade?” International Journal 22, no. 2 (spring...
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