In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009

Accomplished analysists and rising stars explore the evolution of Canada’s role as a world power and sense of itself within the global landscape in this engaging and provocative collection.

Canada’s role as world power and its sense of itself in the global landscape has been largely shaped and defined over the past 100 years by the changing policies and personalities in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).

This engaging and provocative book brings together fifteen of the country’s leading historians and political scientists to discuss a century of Canada’s national interests and DFAIT’s role in defining and pursuing them. Accomplished and influential analysts such as Jack Granatstein, Norman Hillmer, and Nelson Michaud, are joined by rising stars like Whitney Lackenbauer, Adam Chapnick, and Tammy Nemeth in commenting on the history and future implications of Canada’s foreign policy.

In the National Interest gives fresh insight into the Canada First concept in the 1920s, the North American security issues in the 1930s, Canada’s vision for the United Nations, early security warnings in the Arctic, the rise of the international francophone community, conflicting continental visions over energy, and Canada/U.S. policy discussions.

The impact of politicians and senior bureaucrats such as O.D. Skelton, Lester B. Pearson, Marcel Cadieux, Jules Leger, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney are set against issues such as national defence, popular opinion, human rights, and energy production. In the National Interest also provides a platform for discussion about Canada’s future role on the international stage.

With its unique combination of administrative and policy history, In the National Interest is in a field of its own.

With Contributions By: Greg Donaghy, Michael K. Carroll, Norman Hillmer, Galen Roger Perras, Heather Metcalfe, J.L. Grantstein, Adam Chapnick, P. Witney Lackenbauer, Peter Kikkert, Robin S. Gerndron, Michael Hart, Tammy Nemith, Nelson Michaud, Stephen J. Randall, and Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon 

Greg Donaghy is Head of the Historical Section at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and General Editor of its series, Documents on Canadian External Relations. His publications include Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68, and the edited collection (with Patricia Roy) Contradictory Impulses: Canada and Japan in the 20th Century.

Michael K. Carroll is an assistant professor of History at Grant MacEwan University. He is also the author of Pearsons Peacekeepers: Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Greg Donaghy and Michael K. Carroll

Chapter 1: National Independence and the National Interest: O.D. Skelton’s Department of External Affairs in the 1920s

Norman Hilmer

Chapter 2: "Behaving as Adults": External Affairs and North American Security in the 1930s
Galen Roger Perras

Chapter 3: National Idenitty, Public Opinion, and the Department of External Affairs 1935–1939
Heather Metcalfe

Chapter 4: When the Department of External Affairs Mattered—And Whenit Shouldn’t Have
J.L. Granatstein

Chapter 5: The Department of External Affairs and the United Nations Idea, 1943–1965
Adam Chapnick

Chapter 6: Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943–1968
Robin S. Gendron

Chapter 7: Advancing the National Interest: Macel Cadieux, Jules Leger, and Canadian Participation in the Fancophone Community, 1964–1968
P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Peter Kikkert

Chapter 8: External Affairs and Canadian External Trade Policy, 1945–1972
Michael Hart

Chapter 9: Conflicting Visions: Pierre Trudeau, External Affairs, and Energy Policy
Tammy Nemeth

Chapter 10: Setting the Canadian Foreign Policy Agenda, 1984–2009: Prime Ministers as Prime Actors?
Nelson Michaud

Chapter 11: Engaging the United States: The Department of Foreign Affairs and US Policy, 1982–2005
Stephen J Randall

Chapter 12: The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade: Interdepartmental Leadership and the Beijing Conference on Women
Elizabeth Riddell–Dixon

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

An excellent collection . . . highly recommended to both specialists and general readers alike.

—Jatinder Mann, British Journal of Canadian Studies