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So what is going on here? Our government is pursuing what it sees as a Canadian national interest in broadening out Canadian trade with nations other than the United States while ensuring that the trickle of oil we import from Saudi Arabia continues to flow because environmental activists have shut down any possibility that we could replace Saudi oil with oil from Alberta via the now defunct Energy East pipeline.

China’s record on human rights has long been absolutely deplorable

Hypocrisy can be defined in many ways, but if Canada truly cared about human rights abroad, we would publicly remonstrate against China as we did with Saudi Arabia. But we don’t, because China is the world’s second largest economy and, in the minds of some dreamers in Ottawa and elsewhere, a possible replacement, at least in part, for the trade we do with the United States, especially in the age of Donald Trump.

It is wishful thinking, of course. The Canadian and American economies have been merging since the 1840s and will continue to do so far into the future. Not because of any NAFTA, or USMCA, as Donald Trump has dubbed NAFTA 2.0, but because of proximity and the complementarity of what we and they do. Modern technologies and advancements in bulk transportation will only cement the two economies even more. So although we may improve our economic position via a broad trade deal with China, we will remain closely tied to the United States as long as both countries exist.

Our relationships with Saudi Arabia and China are only the most glaring examples of Canadian hypocrisy

Our relationships with Saudi Arabia and China are only the most glaring examples of Canadian hypocrisy in international relations. There are others. But since Canadian governments have long pretended that Canada stands on a unique moral high ground in international relations, Canadians themselves have long believed that myth.

— David J. Bercuson is a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and director of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.