Abstract
Reviewed by: Hugh Segal (hsegal@masseycollege.ca ), Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs; Master, Massey College, University of Toronto
It is rare when former politicians fail to use every word, sentence, and chapter of their memoirs to justify their decisions, to explain how they were either misunderstood or unheeded when things went wrong, and how their superior sense and profound understanding of what was necessary prevailed when things went right. It is precisely this rarity that makes The Call of the World: A Political Memoir so readable and unique. The author, Bill Graham, served as a foreign minister and a defence minister in two successive Liberal governments of Canada, and had a substantial role in the evolution of the defence and foreign policies of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (1993–2003) and Prime Minister Paul Martin Jr. (2003–2006). Chrétien’s competence and political success was informed by deep pragmatism regarding Canada’s world role, with a focus on trade, a broad loyalty to the United Nations imprimatur for global engagement, and a smaller underfunded military. Martin drastically cut the military budget, while his finance minister steadfastly began to ramp up military investment and upgrade Canada’s aspirations for global engagement.
It was Bill Graham’s lot in life to be in the pivotal ministerial roles of foreign affairs and defence under these successive Liberal prime ministers. This book addresses, in an engaging manner, the many ways in which Canada marries federal pressures, bureaucratic and military establishments, diplomatic input, and parliamentary balances or imbalances, to make decisions on foreign deployments, new treaties, or important démarches. He also divulges how competing relationships with the Anglosphere of the US, Australia, and the UK need to be balanced by Canada’s Francophone relationships globally, and need to respect our Arctic and Atlantic exposure to both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia. All this, of course, must be calibrated in some way with Canada’s growing and important trading relationship with China, which was assiduously encouraged by both Liberal prime ministers. As a manual for how Canadian politics can be simultaneously productive and civil, The Call of the World: A Political Memoir passes all the tests. Details about diplomatic nuance and relationships with counterparts in the UK, the US, Russia, France, and elsewhere, combine with frustrations on bureaucracy and internal party politics to paint a glaringly realistic and granular picture of how a foreign or defence minister must negotiate a series of complexities and pressures just to survive – let alone have an impact.
In the first few chapters of the book, Bill speaks about his private life, early education, emerging fascination with the language, culture, and civilization of France, international law, and his travels from Montreal, to Paris, and Africa in his pre-politics days. These chapters speak volumes about the underlying values of decency and fairness that shaped his take on life. That his roots were of considerable wealth and almost aristocratic provenance (by Canadian standards) in no way undercuts the nobility and sacrifice implicit in the public service choices he made. The life of a well-off, globe-trotting legal advisor would have been stellar, and the workload manageable, and it all easily could have been his. Instead, however, he chose to run for office in a challenging Toronto seat already held by the Tories, at a point in the Liberal electoral cycle when internal tensions between the Chrétien and Martin factions of the party were already problematic, and Chrétien’s electoral prospects were vague at best.
What speaks eloquently about Bill’s happiness to serve in any capacity was the way in which he handled his position as chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Canadian House of Commons: intellectually adept, with a common touch, taking a key seat from the Tories, with a higher level of education and experience than many who were put in Cabinet, and not obsessing (as most parliamentarians do) about not being made a minister (despite having run twice before). And his pre-ministerial years, which included deeply engaged local riding service to immigrant and poor communities, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Queer cause in Toronto, and the advancement of Francophone rights in not-always-hospitable Ontario, speaks volumes to the values he brought with him to public service.
For many historians, political figures and their related history are rated in terms of their triumphs and great public moments (and in Bill’s case, there are many), along with defeats and setbacks. All of this information is divulged honestly in this autobiography. What makes this political memoir important, however, is its thematic centre: that politics is a continuous education, and the lessons learned can come from individuals of all walks of life, and one’s own mistakes and conceits. The sections on negotiating with the Saudi royal family on the release of an imprisoned Canadian (p. 219), Bill’s back-and-forth with Colin Powell on developments in Haiti (p. 344), the leak of top-secret defence procurement specs to the sovereigntist opposition before they reached cabinet (p. 358), and his negotiations with the Americans on ballistic missile defence (p. 362), are revealing in many intimate ways about the limitations to a minister’s powers and prerogatives, and the depth of courage necessary to sustain an independent Canadian foreign policy and defence stance as a middle power.
How the author understands his own role and its consequences for Canada provides vast and important lessons about how real politics works within and surrounding a middle power democracy. That the author was a relative hawk about Russian expansionist threats after the Cold War, and in no way naïve about the violent Taliban threat to all of South Asia and beyond, made him a better minister than most who served under Liberal regimes. That he was constrained in some of the more courageous things he wanted to do, and well-sustained in others, informs all who might read this compelling book about the issues that “feel good, go with the flow” Liberal optimism has frequently imposed on the realism, principles, and impact of Canadian foreign and defence policy.