Читать книгу Doing the Continental - David Dyment - Страница 8

PREFACE

President Barack Obama sits down at his desk in the Oval Office for the first time. One of the furthest things from his mind is Canada. From time to time he will receive a briefing that has to do with our country, occasionally a phone call.

On Capitol Hill, the whirling pursuit of interests is intense. The powerful Congress will make decisions based largely on domestic considerations, over which Obama can do little, and which are sometimes not helpful to Canada.

In Ottawa our senior officials worry. “We’ll pay a price,” they say, for “getting offside” with the Americans. They are too referential to an imperial centre to appreciate that our neighbours aren’t even paying attention.

I started this project worried that we were being drawn by the Americans into their maw but soon realized it’s not about them, it’s about us. It’s about how we see ourselves.

As an author, professor, media commentator, Ph.D. in Canadian politics and international relations, and former senior adviser at Foreign Affairs, this was my personal and professional journey to explore Canada’s future with the U.S. I travelled with transborder truckers and interviewed ambassadors. I attended a myriad of conferences where advocates from the right and left railed for and against closer relations with the Americans. While I started on the left I soon realized that both the left and the right are waging an ideological, polarized war that has us missing opportunities.

I challenge our continentalist and nationalist elites to understand our weaknesses and strengths, our fear of and longing for the U.S., and to lift up Canada’s needs rather than laying down ideological creeds. We need to pursue our interests not our ideologies and be aware that the U.S. is a force of nature to be cautiously tamed for our benefit.

Canada’s relations with the U.S. are broad and deep, and with Obama in the White House it is a time of hope and renewal. There is a desperate need to gather disparate expertise into a coherent whole. From water to ballistic missile defence, from energy to Arctic sovereignty, my aim is to provide astute, pithy analysis and a crucial new paradigm for our continental dance with our neighbour and for seizing the opportunity to advance Canada’s interests.