Former Canadian Ambassador on Wrong Side of East-West Divide

On November 19, 2010 the Toronto Star ran a news story by Allan Woods under the heading “Canadian diplomat blasts Ottawa’s stance toward Russia.” The piece, which appeared on the eve of a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, reported on a litany of complaints made by retired Canadian diplomat, Christopher Westdal, of the Harper government’s conduct of Canadian foreign policy toward Russia, Ukraine and Georgia.

In the article Mr. Westdal is said to have “blasted Canada’s foreign policy stance toward Russia as outdated and specifically designed to win over ethnic votes in Canada.” He is quoted as saying: “Our prime minister’s credibility is undermined by widespread suspicion that his government’s policy in East-West security relations is tailored to suit Ukrainian, Baltic and other Russo-phobe diaspora voting blocs in Canada.” Mr. Westdal further claims that “Rigid neo-con antipathy to Russia (reinforced by conservative national media) and a foreign policy narrowly designed for diasporas have led us to the margins of irrelevance and mischief.”

The original source of Mr. Westdal’s comments was a policy paper titled “NATO Summit: Making Peace with Russia, Canada Notwithstanding,” which he prepared in November 2010 for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI). A Calgary-based think tank that includes many well-known academics, consultants and former civil servants among its fellows, directors, and contributors to its publications, the CDFAI is well-connected with Canada’s defence establishment and with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), undoubtedly seeking to influence both with its analyses.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress strongly disagrees with some of the claims that Mr. Westdal makes in his attack on the current Canadian government’s handling of relations with Russia, and his attribution of these to “outdated” Cold War posturing and “neo-con antipathy” to Russia. We particularly take exception with his patronizing and offensive portrayal of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s October 2010 visit to Ukraine, which he described as follows: “He spent his time commemorating no end of atrocities, in avowed aid of remembrance, harping on about his host’s transgressions (centralizing power! restricting access to information! no kidding!) and, to who knows what end (or Canadian national interest), stoking a sense of aggrieved Ukrainian victimhood and narrow nationalism. It was to these ends, presumably, that the Prime Minister exaggerated, more than doubled, the number of Ukrainian victims of the Holodomyr [sic] — doing their memory scant service, surely, with the inference that four million were too few, ten million need have died to make the point.”

Mr. Westdal’s rhetoric and his choice of targets reveals more about his own partisan political prejudices than it does about Ukrainians, Russians, or a host of other issues. What seems obvious from the substance of his remarks is that the real target of his venom was Stephen Harper, whom he unfavourably compares with Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson. The convenient “stick” that he uses to beat him with is the Prime Minister’s visit to Ukraine and his government’s actions in challenging Russia’s behaviour toward its former vassal states and to the West as a whole, including Canada.

While the Ukrainian Canadian Congress feels no need to defend every foreign policy decision of the Conservative government of Canada, it does believe that Prime Minister Harper should be congratulated for his principled stand in drawing attention to the increasingly disturbing developments in Ukraine. He also deserves credit for publicly acknowledging in Kyiv the mass murder of millions of Ukrainians during the genocidal famine of 1932-1933 at a time when the current Ukrainian government is trying to downplay and obfuscate the nature of this crime.  As for Mr. Westdal, he is entitled to his opinions, no matter how ill-informed they might be, since this is a privilege that he enjoys as a citizen of a truly free and democratic country – unlike Russia. However, we vigorously object to his characterization of diaspora Ukrainians as “Russo-phobes”; the sarcastic tone of his remarks concerning the Holodomor; and the dismissive and patronizing intent of his reference to the Prime Minister “stoking a sense of aggrieved victimhood and narrow nationalism.”

As is the case with Ukrainians in Ukraine, the vast majority of Ukrainians in Canada cannot be said to hold “Russo-phobic” views any more than it can be said that most Canadians are “anti-American” (even if some are critical of American government policies or aspects of American society.) Labelling Ukrainians, Balts and other colonized peoples of the Russian Empire and the USSR as “Russo-phobes” is a deliberate slur being promoted by the Kremlin. It seeks to discredit critics of Moscow’s intensifying campaign to its restore its hegemony over its former territories, especially what Russian imperialists like to euphemistically refer to as their “near abroad.” It is name-calling akin to earlier Soviet propaganda that sought to paint all East European critics of the USSR as “fascists” and “Nazi collaborators” because they were tarnishing the image of Russian Communism.   

In actual fact, many diaspora Ukrainians feel great sympathy and a sense of kinship with the long-suffering Russian people, whom they regard as having been politically oppressed, exploited, deceived and abused by centuries of Tsarist autocracy and by seven decades under Communist dictatorship. As exasperated and outraged as many Ukrainians may feel about the way that the Kremlin has treated Ukrainians historically or now conducts relations with independent Ukraine, Ukrainian Canadians are perfectly capable of distinguishing between the Russian people on the one hand, and the imperial Russian state, the Soviet Union, and the post-Communist government of the Russian Federation, on the other.

Furthermore, diaspora Ukrainians continue to identify with and support those brave Russian politicians like Boris Nemtsov and Gary Kasparov who dare to oppose Putinism and are fighting for democracy in Russia today, frequently risking life, liberty and limb. Do the unsolved murders of a long and steadily growing list of journalists, human rights activists and critics of the Kremlin, both in Russia and abroad, not provide sufficient evidence that Moscow no longer deserves to be treated with kid leather gloves by the democratic members of the Euro-Atlantic community? Because objective and informed observers of Russia – including Western diplomats that deal with the Kremlin today, judging from the revelations in Wikileaks – now regard it to be ruled by a thoroughly corrupt, ideologically bankrupt, and anti-Western regime that is playing a dangerous and duplicitous role in world affairs. 

Contrary to the views expressed by Mr. Westdal in his earlier piece titled “Don’t Demonize Putin,” published in the Globe and Mail on August 21, 2007, it is not the West that has demonized Putin, but the actions and threats of Mr. Putin himself that have brought Russia into widespread disrepute. It is regrettably true that for short-sighted political and economic reasons, Europe and the United States have been reluctant to challenge Russia’s aggression toward its neighbours or to condemn its descent into what is effectively an authoritarian one-party state. However, it is time for would-be pundits like Mr. Westdal to stop making excuses for the indefensible Putin-Medvedev regime and to begin thinking about ways of defending Western interests and the citizens of Russia who are struggling to overcome their country’s xenophobic and anti-democratic legacy.

It is not just Diaspora Ukrainians, or Mr. Westdal’s hated “neo-cons,” who have become alarmed by developments since Mr. Putin and his former colleagues in the KGB established “a power vertical” whose tentacles extend throughout Russian society. That Mr. Putin has successfully forged a cabal with Russia’s mafia-like oligarchic elite, its neo-feudal Orthodox church, and with racist, chauvinist and openly imperialistic elements in Russian society, goes a long way toward explaining why “Putinism” has become a term of opprobrium. And it is why the Kremlin ultimately bears responsibility for the increasingly chilled relationship between Moscow and the democratic countries of the West.

Yet reading Mr. Westdal’s policy paper, one gets the impression that it is narrow nationalists, Diaspora Russo-phobes, and neo-con Cold Warriors who are the problem in East-West security relations!

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is firmly committed to promoting what it believes are fundamental Canadian values that should guide all of Canada’s dealings in the international community: the rule of law; the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and a free media; and respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states. Exactly what values does Mr. Westdal represent in his repeated apologies for Putinist Russia?

Needless to say, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is deeply disappointed by the content and the tone of Mr. Westdal’s policy paper, and its sycophantic parroting of Kremlin propaganda.

Finally, at the risk of being indiscrete, it is surprising that while Mr. Westdal always identifies himself as a former Canadian ambassador to Russia and Ukraine, so as to establish his credibility to speak about East-West relations, he fails to disclose his involvement and financial stake in a mining company partially owned by Russian interests and engaged in business in Russia. Knowing how accommodating Russian companies are to the dictates of the Kremlin, it would be appropriate for him to acknowledge all pecuniary or other relationships that he has with companies in Russia whenever he chooses to beat his drum in support of Moscow’s agenda.

Jars Balan

Chair, Canada Ukraine Committee

Ukrainian Canadian Congress

Read full text on UCC website: www.ucc.ca