Chrétien and the World: Canadian Foreign Policy from 1993 to 2003

By Jack Cunningham and John Meehan

UBC Press, September 2025/376 pages

Reviewed by Colin Robertson

October 21, 2025

Once asked what defined his time as Jean Chrétien’s fourth and final foreign minister, the late Bill Graham replied, “Events, dear boy, events.”

Attributed to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the phrase captures the inevitable tug of war between the best-laid plans and the vicissitudes of reality. Still, over the course of his three successive governments, Jean Chrétien’s plans for Canada in the world were largely implemented.

Conventional wisdom has it that, after having served nearly 30 years as a member of parliament and having held a dozen ministerial portfolios, Chrétien as prime minister focused almost entirely on domestic issues.

It’s an easy revisionism to fall into, given the preoccupations of the 90s with getting our finances in order and keeping the country together amid the national unity challenges posed by the rise of the Reform and Bloc Québécois, to say nothing of the knife-edge 1995 Quebec referendum.

That, in all his years as a cabinet minister, Chrétien held the External Affairs portfolio only during the 79-day ministry of John Turner in 1984 only added to the perception that his primary focus was domestic.

As the contributors to Chrétien and the World: Canadian Foreign Policy from 1993 to 2003 make clear in their excellent individual essays, the facts belie that myth. The anthology is edited by Jack Cunningham of Trinity College at University of Toronto and John Meehan, director of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History.

Cunningham and Meehan have brought together leading scholars and former practitioners, including former foreign ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Bill Graham (from positions articulated before his passing in 2022), to produce pertinent essays revisiting the foreign policy of Chrétien’s decade in office.

I especially enjoyed Dan Livermore on the Land Mines Treaty, Jon Allen on the Middle East, Margaret Biggs and Rosemary McCarney on international development, and Brendan Kelly on national unity.

It is a splendid addition to the C.D. Howe series in Canadian political history published by UBC Press under the editorial direction of eminent historians Bob Bothwell and John English.

Taken together, the essays demonstrate that Chretien and his government “pursued an often ambitious, activist policy to forward not only national interests but liberal ideals on the world stage.” In addition, especially in the case of the human security agenda, it had the merit of distinguishing Canada from the United States.

While the criticism is unfair, some felt Brian Mulroney’s government was too much a ‘camp follower’, forgetting his divergence from Ronald Reagan in defence of human rights, notably on the urgency of ending apartheid.

The collection portrays an engaged Chrétien leading a foreign policy that is coherent in its commitment to internationalism and multilateralism. The book’s contributors combine personal recollections, archival research, and interviews to re-examine key decisions, pressures, and turning points throughout the Chrétien decade.

Several contributors argue, mostly successfully, that Chrétien’s foreign policy was not merely reactive — the usual stance of middle and small powers — but structured around principles: respect for multilateralism, caution about military intervention, a belief in development and human rights, all the while leveraging Canada’s middle-power status.

Rather than retreating after the Cold War, his government sought to position Canada as a bridge builder, peacekeeper, and multilateral actor. A strong internationalism also served to boost national unity as Canadians, more than most, define their identity in part from our role and actions internationally.

This posture faced structural challenges: shifting U.S. priorities, the rise of interventionist doctrines, and the growing complexity of threats from nonstate and rogue actors. Inevitably, the policies adopted were adapted by realpolitik, budget constraints, and domestic politics.

A central thread is the attempt to define Chrétien’s foreign policy as “activist liberalism.” In many ways — the human security agenda and Africa policy — Chrétien was also very much heir to his earliest political mentor, Mike Pearson.

Colin Robertson’s interview with ‘Chrétien and the World’ co-author John Meehan/CGAI

While more circumspect than Mulroney’s friendships with American presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Chrétien’s relationship with Bill Clinton was close and cordial; that with George W. Bush was civil and mutually respectful, notwithstanding Chrétien’s principled stance to not back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in the absence of a United Nations Security Council resolution.

A recurring theme is how Chrétien navigated Canada’s relationship with the United States. Operating in a post–Cold War era where U.S. primacy was assumed, the Chrétien government sought to profit from NAFTA and stay aligned in strategic theaters while maintaining Canadian autonomy.

This meant close collaboration in the ‘Smart Border’ accord. Canadian prosperity depended on access to the U.S. market. It meant a more cautious approach to involvement in the U.S. missile defense grid.

It also meant the prescient rejection of involvement in Iraq as the ‘war of choice’, as opposed to authorizing Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, long seen as more legitimately justified following 9/11, albeit ultimately ill-starred.

There is a relative consensus among contributors that Chrétien’s default was not reflexive alignment, but pragmatic partnership. In the case of Iraq, for example, he was willing to diverge even in the face of national division.

Chapters on Afghanistan, NATO, Iraq deliberations, international development, climate, and multilateral commitments are windows into Canadian foreign policy decision-making under pressure. Canada’s engagements with China, Asia, Latin America, and Africa also get attention.

In their chapter “Sound Decisions Do Not Always Produce Good Outcomes” examining Canada’s Afghanistan policy, Janice Stein and Eugene Lang describe the disjunction between good intentions and outcomes, the self-awareness of overreach, and the subsequent debates over Canada’s role. Canada, like many Western states, underestimated the complexity of post‑9/11 commitments.

Chrétien’s government was wary about intervention, conscious of domestic backlash, especially in Quebec, and understandably reluctant about large or long-term military commitments.

Senior military leaders warned about the ‘operational tempo’ that the Canadian Forces had endured through the 1990s in a variety of foreign missions. As then Foreign Minister John Manley later observed: “We were not anticipating long‑term troop engagements on foreign shores.”

While Canada’s initial Afghanistan deployment was well-intentioned, Stein and Lang argue that its flawed execution, limited foresight, and cultural blind spots sowed the seeds of long-term difficulties that ultimately had to be addressed by the Harper government.

Continuity across decades, including transitions in governments, is essential to understanding Canada’s foreign policy posture. Chrétien’s policies did not emerge in a vacuum, but from the confluence of personalities, institutions, and legacy mandates.

Several essays examine how domestic institutions — parliamentary structures, defence bureaucracy, foreign service, interdepartmental dynamics —constrained or enabled foreign policy.

Chrétien and the World is timely, ambitious, and successful in its portrayal of Canadian foreign policy from 1993 to 2003. Until more archives are opened, it is now the standard reference on Chrétien’s foreign policy.

It reveals Chrétien as a prime minister who cared about foreign policy but who was confident enough in his ministers and their deputies to let them lead, a lesson from which his successors might have profited.

The principal takeaway is that there is no Chrétien doctrine, but an internationalist foreign policy that leveraged events using quiet diplomacy with effect.

In notable instances — the human security agenda, the Arctic Council, the ‘Smart Border’ accord — the successes continue to serve Canadian interests.

This collection makes the case that the Chrétien governments, if rarely visionary, thought globally, acted deliberately, and left a foreign policy legacy that governments should study and learn from.

Contributing Writer Colin Robertson, a former career diplomat, is a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Ottawa and host of the CGAI’s Global Exchange podcast. He is Policy’s principal global affairs book reviewer.