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A Response to Daniel Joly

Since I originally presented the lecture, “Ethical Values and Canadian Foreign Aid Policies,” in May 2002 (published in Volume 37 Number 1 [2003] of the Canadian Journal of African Studies), the Canadian government has published Canada Making a Difference in the World: A Policy Statement on Strengthening Aid Effectiveness (September 2002), the final Cabinet-approved version of the earlier discussion paper which I had treated rather critically. Daniel Joly’s robust and challenging commentary on my published lecture reflects this new policy statement closely. As well it may represent a new and significant stage in the evolution of CIDA’s bilateral aid programme. I shall therefore first discuss Joly’s dismissal of my commentary and then reflect upon the importance of Canada Making a Difference in the World (hereafter referred to as CMDW) and the implications it poses for the argument of my paper. The “dominant class” label which I have given to my perspective on Canadian foreign policy towards less developed countries (LDCs) may have misled Joly. The attraction of identifying my approach in this way has been to draw attention to what most students of Canadian foreign policy are likely to find its most distinguishing feature. Alas, it led Joly to assume that I am suggesting, tout court, that Canadian corporate interests have shaped that policy. My fuller expositions of that perspective (Pratt 1983-84, 1984, 1988, 1996bc) are more nuanced than Joly assumes. I offer the hypothesis that Canadian foreign policy has been marked by a particular responsiveness to the interests of capitalism in Canada. But my analysis is not mono-causal. It incorporates as well the importance of geo-political interests and also specific corporate interests that gain the ear of government but should not be dignified as representing a longterm interest of Canadian capital. I have also recognized and sought to explain how ethical values that are prominent in the Canadian political culture have on occasion had