Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 11th, 2009

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Maybe you can enlighten us on what you think might lead people to think there seems to be a real groundswell of public support for him. What can he physically, fundamentally—

[Frank Graves]

Okay, that's a good question.

I do want to point out that some of the improvements that we saw in Canadians' outlook on the U.S.-Canada relationship predate President Bush. There had been a warming. I think solutions on softwood lumber and a few other things had a positive impact.

But to your point, I think the key driver of low regard for the administration of the United States and President Bush was a belief that the foreign policy was fundamentally wrong-headed. There were other factors as well, but this was probably at the top of the list.

And this was not unique to Canada; this was something that went on in most western countries. There was a belief that the pursuit of so-called viral democracy, going over and fusing capital markets with democracy in Iraq and other places, was going to inoculate us against terrorism. There was a sense--and this also emanated from American society--that was possibly theoretically true, but in reality it seemed it made things worse.

So I think a lot of the very low regard that Canadians had for the administration was focused on the fact that they believed the foreign policy was fundamentally wrong-headed and perhaps destructive.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Do you think with this new president and administration they can get beyond that stalemate of the Helms-Burton Act with Cuba, given that Cuba is a substantial partner with Canada on many initiatives, and certainly for tourism?

[Frank Graves]

I think they'd be very optimistic. I don't have specific data. It would be an interesting question to ask. But I believe, yes, they would believe that this new administration, with an increased emphasis on reaching out to the world again.... Americans have always fancied themselves internationalists, probably correctly so, except for different periods in their history, so the idea that this was identified as such a prominent consideration by the President, even in a period of economic angst, and with a return to looking at issues of multilateralism and so forth, is something that would have been music to the ears of many Canadians, who have always been very supportive of those kinds of approaches to the international stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Graves.

Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Graves, if you were advising a government on how to engage the American public with respect to the kind of initiative you're describing, as well as some of the immediate problems we face, how would you go about doing it?

[Frank Graves]

Well, frankly, I think it's almost shocking that we don't have the basic kind of data that every large corporate entity would have to make its case to the American public in a period of difficulty, and not just the American public, but the key decision-makers. As far as I'm aware, the data we've been assembling for the last 10 or 15 years has basically petered out, and there's none of that being supported by our government or others. The shelf life of the materials we do have isn't really up to the task. Beyond that, I believe that we have to focus on the areas where we're really likely to make a difference and get a return on the investment, which are more or less the areas we've been discussing this afternoon.

I also believe that it's folly to try to generally change American attitudes towards Canada. I think what we need to do is find the segments of American society, the key groups, that we could call, perhaps, the “influentials”--the folks who are most likely, for example, to participate in the political process, write letters to the editor, perhaps belong to political parties, and so forth--and try to figure out messages that would resonate with those particular groups. There are ways, as researchers, to segment and refine the messages and target the messages using appropriate media to places where you could make a difference.

It's also essential that our key representatives in our consuls and also in our provincial governments and so forth are equipped with the basic information needed to dispel some of the false images about what Americans are thinking about Canada and the border and that they are also, by the way, aware of areas where difficulty exists. For example, it's extremely disturbing to find out that three years ago, 48% of Americans wanted to build a wall at the Canadian border. Now, we could be comforted that 87% wanted to make a wall at the Mexican border, and they actually started building it. But I personally found it pretty chilling that 48% of Americans.... Now, that number's gone down a bit, and it coexists with a lot of other data that would suggest that it's not a very sincere belief on the part of Americans. But I think it's important for us to know where the problems exist as well as what our exposed flanks are. And where we do have points of advantage that are highly significant, we should be able to assemble those in some focused communications to the key decision-makers we're capable of influencing.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

What I'm hearing you say is that in order for us to be successful with this relationship, which is the most important foreign relationship we have, we need an unprecedented degree of coordination. We need a major public affairs strategy with respect to how we would deal with such an important relationship. We need to look at the key critical points of intervention where we can in fact make a difference so that we can overcome some of the challenges we face. And we're not doing this right now.

[Frank Graves]

Yes, exactly.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

You're ruling out a major advertising campaign. That wouldn't be necessary or desirable. It would be more a question of looking at how you focus on the key decision-makers to get them to see things a little differently.

[Frank Graves]

I wouldn't rule it out, but I would say that we don't have the empirical ingredients to really give us a good sense of where the return on investment would be most likely to be realized right now. We're basically just shooting in the dark. Given the stakes involved, I find it really kind of astonishing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Graves.

We'll move back to Mr. Lunney and then to Madame Deschamps.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Graves, thank you for leading us in an interesting discussion here, or for creating the forum for that to happen.

Mr. Pearson mentioned Iran. I just wanted to pick up on whether in fact your polling shows that either population on either side of the border is significantly engaged on the nuclear issue in Iran. I know that the former U.S. administration did a lot of talking about Iran, and the new one has mentioned Iran and a different approach. Is the significant threat of Iran's nuclear proliferation really on people's minds, considering that they just launched a satellite and so on? Is that on people's minds?

[Frank Graves]

That's a good question. I don't have any data since they launched a satellite, but I do have earlier data, and yes, it's very much on people's minds. It's perhaps on people's minds at least as much, and maybe more so, than the threat of Iraq ever was.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, thank you.

I know that the Arctic is going to be something that certainly, in Canada, we have a lot of interest in. Developing the Arctic is a big concern to Canadians. I think Canadians are engaged a bit in the notion of the Arctic, and always have been. But is that an issue on the radar of Americans, particularly, other than the administration?

[Frank Graves]

The general public, no. But I believe that there will be a huge issue that's kind of percolating out there. There will be undoubtedly massive movements of human populations in the first half of this century, perhaps unprecedented, as a consequence of climate change, even if you take the most conservative estimates. And some of the recent work by some very respected economists suggests that countries like Russia and Canada will in fact, even though everybody is going to suffer to some extent under climate change, become relatively more attractive. And the question of how we will deal with those kinds of potentially massive shifts of human population, coupled with the navigable Northwest Passage and so forth, are extremely challenging questions that I think deserve some attention sooner rather than later. Even though it probably won't be a particular concern for me in my lifetime, it's going to be something that's going to be of great concern to many younger Canadians in their lifetime.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I think we will be discussing it a lot more in the future.

I want to pick up on your comment about the wall at the border from the American perspective. Then of course as some of our colleagues would remember, we had a Manitoba premier not too many decades ago who talked about damming up water at the border, the Red River, when there was concern about flooding. After all, it was American water. And of course that got some interesting discussion going and the floodway was built, which really saved Winnipeg. But coming to the border, there was a lot of angst in the U.S. after 9/11 after it was inappropriately implied that these 9/11 terrorists had actually penetrated the U.S. from Canada. It turned out not to be true.

Does your polling show that there's a bit of angst or a fair bit of angst among the American population about our Canadian border being in fact problematic for them?

[Frank Graves]

That's a very good question. Yes, I have polled regularly. I've polled almost monthly since September 11 in Canada and the United States on issues like borders. It's interesting to note for example that the western hemisphere travel initiative is the most recognizable piece of public policy in Canada today. Ninety percent of Canadians can give you a working definition of WHTI even if they don't know all the letters, how it works, when it came in and so forth, which eclipses any policy in our Canadian panoply of policies, which is interesting. They're very concerned about this.

The issues at the border are ones for which we've seen some changes through time. Basically, we've seen in both Canada and the United States in the period from 2002 to about 2006 the idea that maybe we should be strengthening our borders. And in the United States, it wasn't surprising. It was pretty well just driven by security concerns, but Canadians would be saying we have to keep out undesirable things like guns, handguns, and drugs and so forth. And unfortunately this co-existed with a period when the border actually did become more difficult to negotiate. WHTI was implemented. We were starting to arm our border guards. And I really wonder whether or not in the long term this is not something that is going to have a deleterious effect on the ability of the two countries to do business with each other, to move freely, which basically the majority of Canadians and Americans still strongly support.

So I'm quite concerned not just about the practical significance but also the symbolic significance of what's gone on with the border. I think it would be an optimistic read now that we see some relaxation of the concerns with security in the United States, particularly among some of the younger cohort that were responsible for propelling President Obama to victory. The concerns with things like civil liberties and the economy and trade were more important and would have eclipsed the traditional balance points that have been put askew by all the concern in the post-9/11 world. Now there's some sense that maybe things might be moving back. And as the relationship between the two countries shows some sort of improvement, it would be nice to believe that maybe we could see some thawing and some better movement. And then maybe we could see as well strong support for again raising the notion of focusing on a perimeter rather than necessarily raising walls within North America.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Graves.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Graves. You are providing us with some very interesting information today.

From a more sociological perspective, when people talk about the United States, one event remains a constant in their collective memory, namely the attacks of September 11, 2001. No one can ignore the serious economic crisis currently unfolding in the United States. In light of the events of September 11 and the current economic crisis, how do Canadians now view the United States? Is it not true that the events of 9-11 have distorted to some extent our relations with or our perception of the United States? Conversely, is it not true that the United States may have felt victimized somewhat by this tragedy and are now feeling even more victimized by the crisis that is battering their economy?

Are we sensing a complete shift to the left, with the election of U.S President Obama? There is a renewed sense of hope in the air. Canada is trying to strengthen its relations with the United States. What impact is this likely to have? Are we now identifying more with our Canadian values as a result of President Obama's election? Because of its close association with the Obama effect, does Canada not run the risk of losing its independence on the international stage?

[Frank Graves]

Those are good questions. I'll try to respond to a couple of them.

It was quite shocking to see in the aftermath of September 11—which was the most viewed event in Canadian history as well as American history.... People were riveted to this for the immediate period and thereafter. It had an enormously profound impact, which all the evidence suggests was generational—it didn't dissipate. To best sum up the view, Canadians almost felt embarrassed about any of the more churlish or negative views they had about the United States. The overall sentiment was that we were all Americans now.

That sustained the strong support we had for such things as going to Iraq and Afghanistan. But we also saw it dissipate considerably, some time out, as we became much less convinced that Americans were going the right way. Now there is a greater sense of a common plight, with the economic woes that confront both countries. Despite the fact that there are some differences, there's also a greater sense of resonance or sympathy for the political administration in the United States right now.

Do I think this poses a danger that Canadians will perhaps relinquish or sacrifice their sense of their unique identity? I think we should be mindful of that possibility, but I also think the more likely answer is that it won't. Part of the maturing of the Canadian sense of identity that has occurred over the last 20 years has been a sense that we don't necessarily need to define ourselves now as not being American; we have a positive sense of what it means to be Canadian. It's more a sense of what we understand to be a positive conception: of being Canadian rather than of not being American. We see some evidence of that in our data.

Another point worth noting is that when free trade came into existence, the arguments were that both a pre-condition and a result of free trade would be a greater unification of values and subsequently of identity. In fact, we saw in Maastricht—in Europe—that precisely that happened, although there were different reasons. In Europe now, the instance of people who see themselves as both French, say, and European is almost equal, whereas at the outset of free trade the numbers were dramatically different.

What we've seen in North America is quite startlingly different. In North America, despite the fact that the levels of economic interdependence are as high as or higher than in Europe, national identities have actually been increasing through time. If we measure them over the last 20 to 30 years, the incidence of people who see their principal identification as being with their country, in Canada and the United States and probably Mexico, is much higher now than it was at the outset. What has declined is attachment to local community. In Europe, attachment to continent and local community have been rising. In Canada, attachment to North America has been relatively trivial, unlike the case in Europe.

It really is a different sort of trajectory. I would describe it more as a mosaic of strong identities co-existing within a common market. I don't see anything that will disrupt this in the near future. Perhaps another huge security shock is something that could do it, but I personally think that identities in Canada, the United States, and Mexico are relatively robust.

For the kinds of risk that were predicted by a lot of Canadian nationalists in the 1980s, the evidence is that we've sustained a very strong—in fact, perhaps a stronger—sense of identity during this period of trade liberalization. It's one that is in some respects improbable, but I think it answers the question: there's a good chance we'll be just fine, and our flirtation with the new administration does not mean we're going to be surrendering a sense of sovereignty or identity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Committee members, we have scheduled for the second hour, as you know, committee business. I'm not certain how much time we're going to get on committee business; we still have two more on the second round.

Do you want to continue and allow them to proceed or move to committee business?

Do we stick with the agenda?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Why don't we allow everyone to ask questions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Then we'll go to Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Graves. There's certainly some interesting information here today.

Could you expand on border issues? You were talking earlier about areas of cooperation. You talked about environment, food and product safety, and trade. I believe we have already signed the safety and security protocol as it relates to health issues, for instance. The United States is required to let us know, if there is a communicable disease, and vice versa. We're already stepping forward in those kinds of things, and yet at the same time we see the United States asking for passports now for entry into the States, which I think is going to hamper tourism both ways.

How do we go about addressing these issues? From our perspective as Canadians, we want the rapport to be there. We realize there are issues that are critical for health—and when I use the word “health” I don't just mean physical health, but health in a more esoteric understanding. How do we go about addressing those issues while yet maintaining safety and security as well?