Canada in the Evolving World of Development Cooperation: The Dynamics of Deliquescence?

Development cooperation is widely seen as the third major pillar of Western governments’ international policy, along with diplomacy and defence. Of the three however, it is by far the most recent and politically insecure. Because of this, it has been vulnerable to changing fads and fashions and to an ongoing uncertainty of purpose. While the resulting policy has experienced political ebbs and flows, the direction of travel since the mid-2000s has been toward relative marginalization. The chapter tracks this trajectory through the Chretien/Martin, Harper, and Justin Trudeau governments. It finds an overall trend towards growing thematic focus that paradoxically diminishes the breadth and salience of development cooperation as an instrument of Canadian international policy.