Justin Trudeau is fond of proclaiming that “Canada is back” — a statement that evokes a vague, nostalgic yearning to recreate a once-proud international reputation. In a way, it’s rather like Donald’s Trump’s equally vague vow to “make America Great Again”; neither leader seems capable of explaining what the slogans mean, but both like the way the words sound.

In Canada’s case, being “back” seems to suggest a return to the heady decades of the Cold War, when Canada was widely admired for its founding role at the United Nations, its commitment to peacekeeping, its hefty contributions in action and money to foreign aid and a succession of leaders who turned out to be effective international statesmen: Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney.

But that world has gone away — and there is no going “back.”

When Canada joined the G-7 in 1976, its economy was the world’s seventh largest. Today it has slid to 10th place. In the post-Second World War era, Canada — rich and democratic, yet unburdened by the baggage of the former colonial powers — played a major international role in the Commonwealth and the Francophonie. To cite one shining example: Canadian leadership in the campaign to shame the racist regime in South Africa out of existence stood in stark contrast to the complicity of Britain and the United States. Canada wasn’t elected every decade to a UN Security Council seat by accident; it was an honour meant to reflect the country’s proven performance in international affairs.

The half-century from 1945 to 1995 was well-suited to allowing a middle power like Canada to punch above its weight. Cold War peacekeeping wasn’t easy, but neither was it particularly costly in terms of casualties or cash. Well-trained Canadian troops could (and did) spend decades patrolling hotspots like Nicosia’s Green Line and the Golan Heights. Back then, peacekeeping sent Canadian soldiers to places where aging equipment was no detriment, the risks of getting shot tended to be slim and the pleasures of Cypriot beaches and Damascus’ lively souk took the edge off hardship.

It was a time when Canadian leaders could boast, correctly, that the nation had never missed a UN peacekeeping mission. By the early 1990s, Canada had more troops deployed in more UN peacekeeping missions than any other country.

Today, Canada’s foreign aid as a percentage of gross national product is roughly half the level it was in 1975, and Ottawa has slashed defence spending since then by 60 per cent. Today, Canada’s foreign aid as a percentage of gross national product is roughly half the level it was in 1975, and Ottawa has slashed defence spending since then by 60 per cent.

Then the world changed — and peacekeeping got tough. The Cold War ended, and with it the era of superpowers guaranteeing peace deals. In Bosnia, Croatia and Somalia, second-rate equipment turned out to be extremely dangerous. And when a pair of elite Canadian special forces soldiers tortured and murdered a defenceless teenage prisoner in Somalia — followed by a concerted cover-up by the Canadian high command — the gloss was off UN peacekeeping.

Peacekeeping had become dangerous, difficult and very costly. Canada lost interest. Today, Canada has 62 UN peacekeepers deployed and ranks 66th among contributing nations.

During the golden age of Canadian diplomacy, Canadian leaders took bold political steps at the risk of alienating close allies. When Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau launched a personal diplomatic gambit in the mid-1980s to ease dangerous levels of hostility between Moscow and Washington, President Ronald Reagan wasn’t pleased — but Canada’s solid international reputation demanded respect and attention.

That’s a far cry from Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland claiming that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau getting an invite “as an observer” to the East Asia Summit last year “was a really big deal.”

“(When) the prime minister says ‘Canada is back,’ the fact that he has been invited … is a very, very important sign of that,” she said.

Actually, it isn’t. Numbers don’t lie. Nor do commitments.

Today, Canada’s foreign aid as a percentage of gross national product is roughly half the level it was in 1975. Two decades of Canada’s gross underperformance in foreign aid cost seven million lives over a 20-year period, according to Global Canada, a non-partisan, non-governmental organization that seeks to advance Canada’s global engagement. Meanwhile, Ottawa has slashed defence spending by 60 per cent compared to 1975 levels.

“Climate change, civil war, drought and natural disasters everywhere threaten us all, not least because these spawn destabilizing mass migrations,” Freeland explained in a year-end essay for The Economist. “And democracies have a further shared imperative to uphold human rights, as Canada has done recently in the case of the rights of the Rohingya.”

Oh, really? Suddenly, a private audience with Aung San Suu Kyi in which Trudeau voiced some quiet disapproval of Myanmar’s military campaign of rape and murder — the most vicious program of ethnic cleansing of the 21th century to date — is being held up as a return to a principled foreign policy.

Canadian soldiers were eyewitnesses to Rwanda’s genocide and years of monstrous ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo. A little finger-wagging in private hardly counts as principled diplomacy.

Nor does the Trudeau government’s deafening silence over Iranian pro-democracy protesters being gunned down by state zealots. Making noise now might undermine Liberal efforts to re-open the embassy in Tehran and do some trading, after all. And Canada’s decision to abstain from a UN vote on President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — in defiance of international law and UN Security Council resolutions — wasn’t exactly a shining moment for us either.

There’s no point in pleading for a Security Council seat unless the Canadian government actually has principles it’s willing to publicly support.

Canada can’t go back to the Cold War era, when a high international profile and a glowing reputation came cheap. The world is different now. Making the words “Canada is back” actually mean something in this 21st century of global disequilibrium and new threats requires the expenditure of money, effort and risk — not more photo ops.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.