In Print

Question Period: Jack Granatstein

By Kevin Steel ⋅ March 12, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Born May 21, 1939 in Toronto. BA from Royal Military College of Canada. MA, University of Toronto. Ph.D. from Duke University. Retired professor of history. Former director, Canadian War Museum. Author of over 60 books. Recently published Whose War Is It?: How Canada Can Survive in the Post-9/11 World

Kevin Steel: In your new book, you characterize the War on Terror as “the defining issue of the present era, the struggle of a global medieval theocracy against modernity.” Why do you think so many—particularly on the political left—fail to see it this way?

Jack Granatstein: I think a lot of Canadians are blinded by anti-Americanism to the extent that they can see no other threat to Canada or the world. The War on Terror to them is a myth; large numbers of them simply do not believe that 9-11 was an Islamist attack. And too many Canadians exist in a dream world where the enemy lives to the south of us.

KS: You have a chapter on Canada/US relations, and write that anti-Americanism is a “disease, a virus that has spread … deeply into our body politic…” What do you believe is the cause of this?

JG: There’s history, for a start. Canada was founded as a reaction to the United States, to the revolution of 1776. I don’t think there is any doubt that our history has made us the anti-American North American state. That’s one. Second, the United States is the leading capitalistic society and many Canadians, particularly those on the left, deeply resent this. Third, the Americans are our neighbours and because they are richer and stronger there is a huge amount of envy in every Canadian. You put all those together and add to it the occasional rough treatment we receive from the United States and there you have the makings of Canadian anti-Americanism.

KS: You refer to “national interests” throughout your book. For instance, “…the national interest issues—security, unity, economics, democracy, freedom—that must drive our foreign and defence policies.” Of national interests you list, which do you see as the highest priority and why?

JG: To my mind they are all high priorities. But to me, the basic task of a nation state is to protect the security of its people and its territory. That’s the basic task, but they all go together. We can’t do that if we’re not united, we can’t do that if we’re not prosperous, we can’t do that if we’re not democratic or free. So they are seamless web of national interests. The key thing is that Canadian governments have neither identified these interests nor made efforts to protect them, particularly the security of the people and our territory.

KS: The book begins and ends not with a war scenario, but with a domestic disaster scenario—a Vancouver earthquake. Why did you write it this way?

JG: I did it primarily because I wanted to make the point to Canadians that one of the purposes of having a military is that it is usable in domestic situations, and not having a military—as we don’t—exposes you to terrible damage in the event of a major national disaster. A B.C. scenario, where the nearest army troops are in Edmonton across the mountains, points to the feeble nature of the Canadian forces and to our inability to help British Columbians in the event of a disaster.

KS: In the middle of the book you veer away from the War on Terror and devote an entire chapter to the Canadian North. How do you connect the two?

JG: I don’t think of this as a book on the War on Terror. I think it is a book on Canada’s foreign and defence policies in the 21st century, in the post-9-11 era. The north is one of our problem areas and it will become increasingly so as the ice melts. It poses a whole series of key questions for us. Do we want a military presence there? If so, what kind? How do we summon the political will to protect our north, particularly when the major threat to our sovereignty comes from the United States? How do we handle this? I just wanted to point to some of these key things.

KS: How optimistic are you that the present government will keep its key promises on protecting the north?

JG: I am in fact not optimistic. The government seems to me at the moment to have bought the entire environmental line, and there is every indication right now that it is backing away from its defence promises. It doesn’t please me to say that, but that seems to be what’s going on. That was not true at the time I wrote this book.

KS: How has your book been received by Canada’s Foreign Affairs establishment?

JG: It’s a little too soon to say. But I did get a phone call today from a former senior Foreign Affairs official who was whooping and cheering because I’d gone after Lloyd Axworthy [former Foreign Affairs minister, promoted the idea of ‘soft power’] and Paul Heinbecker [former Canadian Ambassador to the UN]. I think it is going to depend on whether a Foreign Affairs establishment individual is an Axworthy-ian or not.

KS: What would be the opposite of an Axworthy-ian?

JG: A realist.

KS: On multiculturalism, you write “It is becoming increasingly obvious that the racial and cultural separation permitted (and encouraged) by multicultural theory and practice in Canada is not good for the future of Canadian society.” How do we get rid of it?

JG: It’s very tough because multiculturalism is very much a policy that government and schools and media push very strongly. I in truth don’t want to get rid of multiculturalism. It’s the separation involved, it’s the fact that we deliberately encourage people who come to this Canada to stay separate, to not integrate, to live amongst themselves—that’s what frightens me, as does the current research evidence that shows that second generation immigrants are even less integrated than the first generation. These things point to trouble down the road, trouble we see in Holland and France and Britain. I think it would do us a lot of good to recognize that we will have problems, and we need to take steps to ameliorate them, or even better eliminate them.

KS: In a practical sense, what must Canada do—to quote from your book—to “make Canadians of those who come here”?

JG: At the present time we don’t do anything. We leave it up to individuals to assimilate as much as they wish. This strikes me as a recipe for failure. You don’t make democrats, you don’t make free people, out of people who come from parts of the world that aren’t democratic and free by simply doing nothing to them. It is not something you pick up by osmosis. It would be very useful for example if we taught our history—our history of solving problems without killing each other—to newcomers. It would be useful if we made a special effort to explain and interpret democratic institutions to those who come here. It would be extremely useful if we did as Prime Minister Howard did in Australia a couple of years ago to say to his people, we want immigrants, but if you come here you have to learn our language, you have to learn our history, our culture; you have to become part of us. And we have never had a prime minister who has ever said that.

KS: After extensively cataloguing a host of problems in Canada’s defence and foreign policy, at the end of your new book you state you are optimistic. Why?

JG: I think there is a growing number of Canadians who recognize that the kinds of policies we have followed are self-destructive. I think that to some extent the Harper election victory was an indication that a different mentality amongst Canadians might be taking shape. The Harper government to my mind hasn’t lived up to all of the hopes that people of that mentality might have had. But it has shown some flashes of principle and ideas that continue to make some people optimistic. The problems are huge. The costs involved in turning the ship of state around are very large. But hell, if you weren’t optimistic, there wouldn’t be any point in going on.

[This article appeared in the March 12, 2007 issue of the Western Standard.]