Summary

The Bahá’í Community of Canada welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Dialogue on Foreign Policy. We comment on the three current pillars of Canadian foreign policy: security, prosperity and values. Fundamental to the challenge of conducting foreign policy today is the fashioning of a new organizing principle in international affairs. Canada, by virtue of its history, diverse population, multilateral credentials and unique relationship to the United States, can play an unusually creative role in the evolution of world affairs over the coming years. The nation-state system that has dominated world affairs for some 350 years no longer serves the world’s needs. In an age marked by growing trans-national cooperation in both the private and public sectors, neither does a unipolar world. The principle of the oneness of humankind provides a practical principle by which contemporary foreign policy can best be pursued. Useful as an ideal or vision by which to set a new direction in the evolution of human affairs over the coming years, the oneness of humankind can also serve as a very practical and strategic guide in renewing the tools of Canadian diplomacy, defence and international development policy.

Among the implications of this principle we mention three in particular. First, we urge Canada to promote as energetically as possible genuine reform of the multilateral system towards effective and credible global governance. Second, Canada needs to deepen efforts only just begun to understand and promote sustainable development. This will require a more robust concept of prosperity than conventional understandings rooted in assumptions that reflect a culture of materialism. Prosperity, as a defining pillar of Canadian foreign policy, needs to be recast so that the concept includes a measure of participation in social and economic decision-making by peoples at all levels of society. The concept needs to include adequate reference to education and its universal accessibility, to the processes by which knowledge is generated and applied, and to standards of justice and equity, all essential elements in any adequate concept of human prosperity. Third, it is time to develop a more thorough appreciation, in Canadian foreign policy, for interfaith relationships based squarely on Canadian values of religious freedom and pluralism that, in today’s global community, are necessary prerequisites to world peace and human solidarity.