The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute has created a plan which actualizes the government’s claim to supporting “Feminist Foreign Policy” and proposes to do so in a cost-free manner.
To start, Canada should not be influenced by the United States’ understanding of Foreign Affairs. Specifically, Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was arrested at the Vancouver Airport at the end of 2018, should be released as part of a negotiation to have Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig returned. The detainment of Wanzhou supports the Trump administration’s Sinophobic ideology, which has only been amplified by the results of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada should not involve itself with the conflict that has been arising between the US and China in the past decade.
Canada must also scrap its plan to spend $19 – $77 billion on new fighter jets. WILPF Canada has been outspoken about its opposition to this purchase. The cost of purchasing and upkeeping the 88 new fighter jets is immense, and a poor way to spend our public funds. They are also largely fuel-inefficient and would contribute to the growing climate crisis that has become impossible to ignore.
Charles Nixon, former deputy minister of National Defence, strongly feels that there is no need for Canada to purchase these jets. He has argued that the fighter aircraft would also be ineffective against a terror attack similar to 9/11, which he claims would be the “only credible aerial threat to Canadian territory”.
The implementation of the policy platform that the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute has proposed is not radical enough to result in world peace, but small, meaningful changes like these can help lead us into living in a war-free world.
Please click the link below to see the other 18 points that were proposed:
The website for the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute can be found here:
