Is Canada back? Human security and national unity during the Governments of Jean Chrétien and Justin Trudeau
Dissertação de mestrado em Ciência Política ; A search for national purpose has always played a central role throughout the several governments of Canada. Particularly after the end of World War II, the Golden Years of Canadian Foreign Policy were inaugurated, a broad slogan which Canadians assume as part of their existence as a political community, thus establishing a parallel between National Unity and Foreign Policy. Such approach brands Canada as a mediatory middle power, remarked by a permanent engagement and cooperative behavior, endorsing universal values through the promotion of a more institutionalized and just international world order: a vision with permanent presence in its processes of agenda setting and execution. Framed within the broad agenda of internationalism, different liberal governments have branded their political program in order to rescue the Golden Age and achieve their political interests may these be internal, external, or both. This thesis starts by analyzing how the Human Security Agenda emerged through the Government of Jean Chrétien during the 1990's as a response to an internal crisis of national unity in the eve of the Quebec Referendum, calling for a sense of national unity among Canadians by increasing their sense of national pride and belonging, also being remarked as the last internationalist period in Canadian politics. In the eve of the 2015 federal election, Justin Trudeau has brought to discourse the so called Canadian liberal values after a decade of Conservative rule, offering a positive and even nostalgic vision of Canada by enhancing the need to return liberal internationalism to Canadian politics. Once in power, Trudeau announced that "Canada is back", opening the door for an innovative, idealistic and very personal styled Foreign Policy agenda that Canadians identified with and even a likely possibility of rebuilding a new Human Security Agenda. However, much of Trudeau's rhetoric has lost credibility as its actions and experiences as prime minister did not keep up ...