The Human Security Agenda in Canadian Foreign Policy Too Idealist to be Practical

The Human Security Agenda in Canadian Foreign Policy Too Idealist to be Practical

After the experience of East Timor, one can say that the human security agenda “Safety for People” cannot provide a viable foundation for Canadian foreign policy, even though Canada was a foremost proponent in the 1990s.



In the mid 1990s the Canadian government embraced the human security agenda. In Canada, it was largely driven by one man, Lloyd Axworthy, Canada’s foreign minister from 1996 to 2000 who appears to be more idealistic than practical. It was a great idea but it cannot be implemented, as was shown in the East Timor experience. Talk is cheap but putting it into action is a totally different picture. There was a huge gap between human security agenda and Canada’s actual policy and response to the violence in East Timor in September 1999. Eventually, two long months after the start of the violence Canada did respond by sending by sending a small group of 250 infantry men to the international forces. Canada's response was cautious, slow and small.

The East Timor experience demonstrated very well the limitations of the human security agenda and why it cannot provide a viable foundation for Canadian foreign policy. These limitations were:



1. It showed that there was no real Canadian interest, willingness nor capacity in ending the threat to the safety of citizen of East Timor, a land about 640 kilometers northwest of Australia, with a population of about 1 million people. Only a token/symbolic contribution was sent. This could also have been due to the fact that Canada had large economic interests in Indonesia,a population of 230 million, and did not want to annoy Indonesia. About one third of a billion dollars in military sales had been approved by the Canadian Prime Minister to Indonesia over 5 years.



Australia was more actively involved than Canada because of the proximity and also because there is oil and gas off the coast of East Timor, which Australia now shares with East Timor in its development.



Canada may have been pushed into activity by public opinion, media attention of the violence and lobbyists lobbying the government and educating the public. Non government organizations had been in East Timor since the middle of the 1970s. In a true human security agenda this should not be a driving force for action.



Also the prime minister did not want to use force as a tool of foreign policy unless there was a high level of public support, such as in Kosovo in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2002. The prime minister felt that fighting in East Timor for human security would not be an acceptable political opinion of many Canadians. Canada was a well known peacekeeper nation not involved in active combat. It was felt that Canadians would not want Canadian troops in harm’s way. Different governments would give different reactions. Chretien also allowed the defence budget to decrease in the 1990s leaving a huge gap between Canada’s commitments and the capabilities of the Canadian Forces.



2. It showed that if the human security agenda was taken seriously in foreign policy by Canada then Canada should have been organized to implement its commitments. However the East Timor experience showed it was not. Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Minister of Finance Paul Martin, and Minister of National Defence did not buy into the human security agenda of sending a strong expedition to Timor, as Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy would have wanted. Also there was no forward planning in Canada for the possibility that the East Timor vote on autonomy might be marked by violence even though intelligence reports stated there could be. Canada was not ready for the violence.



In a world where the west, including Canada, is mostly Realpolitik instead of Moralpolitik, this agenda would seem to be in conflict with the west’s way. According to students, Canada would have to become an imperialist boyscout to have the human security agenda in its foreign policy. I think it might be a good idea but we need to look out for ourselves first. (Sorry my Realpolitik is showing!)



Canada's foreign policy needs to be something universal that all four parties can agree on and live with. It needs to be something that is morally sound for us and at the same time making sure it is a safe move for Canada. Once we have such a plan that is more universal than it shall be easier to use and work.




Overall it can be stated that the East Timor situation of 1999 showed that the human security agenda can offer a useful analytical tool but it cannot be useful for foreign policy in Canada. This is because human security is too vague and broad to be meaningful to foreign policy. It involves a large range of different threats to human safety and a diverse and different set of policy solutions to resolve the threats. Also even if human security perspective was narrowed, the commitment by Canada would still be a very large one and one which we could not deliver on because of many reasons, such as political, economically, etc. Therefore East Timor experience of 1999 has shown that the human security agenda could not be applied to Canada’s foreign policy, especially in light of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Canada government has dropped human security as a central theme of its foreign policy.


Info from
T.S. Hataley & Kim Richard Nossal, " The Limits of the Human Security Agenda: The Case of Canada's Response to the Timor Crisis,"Global Change,Peace & Security( Vol.16,No.1.February 2004),pp.5-17