just exploring his views on some fundamental issues,” Longshaft said to Burump. Turning to me, he said, “I’d now like to discuss the foreign policy priorities of the Canadian government. As any properly prepared candidate knows, national security, national unity, and human rights are key components along with others such as economic well-being and environmental protection. For the sake of our discussion today, however, I want to focus only on the first three. Do you think that any one of them should take precedence over the others?” He leaned back in his chair, stared at me impassively, and puffed on his pipe, waiting to hear what I would say.
I looked back at him wondering why he had asked that particular question so soon after questioning me on the wars in Vietnam and Algeria. Was there some sort of link between the three priorities he selected? Was he trying to help me or to trip me up?
“Please answer the question. We don’t have time to waste.”
“National security trumps human rights.”
“And why do you say that?”
“Because the first priority of any government is to safeguard the national territory of the state against foreign aggression and to defend its citizens against terrorism. Without national security, there couldn’t be human rights — or anything else for that matter.”
“Is that why you say the United States is right to intervene militarily in Vietnam, to safeguard its national security and those of its allies in the free world?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Even if the United States violates the human rights of the Vietnamese people?”
“Yes, that follows logically. I suppose so.”
“You didn’t deal with national unity. Where would it fit in your order of foreign policy priorities? Ahead? Behind? In-between national security and human rights?”
“When you say national unity I assume you mean the need to keep Quebec from declaring independence from Canada?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Then I’d put national security ahead of national unity.”
“Does that mean you would favour using force to keep Quebec a part of Canada?”
“No I wouldn’t. If the people of Quebec want to create their own country, they should be allowed to do so as long as it was done in a democratic and peaceful way.”
“Then what do you mean when say you would put national security ahead of national unity?”
“I mean that national security as defined as the defence of Canada against external threats and domestic terrorism should trump national unity. And that’s because the Quebec issue is an internal and not an external problem. Quebec’s place in Confederation is something Canadians and Quebeckers have to sort out peacefully among themselves.”
“Would you put human rights ahead of national unity?”
“No I wouldn’t because the suspension of human rights might be needed someday to safeguard national unity. National security, national unity, and human rights should constitute the proper order of priority.”
“Now let’s take another tack. Assume the Department accepted you as one of its Foreign Service officers, and posted you abroad to a country overseas. Let’s call it country X. Let’s say country X is in the Third World, maybe in one of those former colonies which are just now joining the United Nations as independent countries. What if you received instructions from the Department to do something your conscience told you was wrong? What would you do?”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Ah the specifics. The devil is always in the details. Now let’s say you were instructed to accept information from a security institution in country X that a security institution of the Canadian government needed. For the sake of argument, let’s say it was the RCMP but you knew the information had been obtained through torture. They do a lot of torturing in those countries, Mr. Cadotte. It’s hard to do business with certain countries without getting your hands dirty, Mr. Cadotte.”
“No I wouldn’t accept it. That would be contrary to everything I was brought up to believe.”
“You mean you would refuse to carry out instructions that would violate your moral compass? Even if all that was involved was going down to headquarters of a foreign security institution to pick up a sealed package of information and making sure it was delivered to the Canadian agency that wanted it? Even if was to help the RCMP whose mandate includes protecting Canada and Canadians against terrorism, espionage, and issues of a similar nature?”
“I wouldn’t do it if I had reasonable grounds to believe the information had been extracted through mistreatment or torture. The RCMP can do its own dirty work.”
“It’s not that easy. The RCMP doesn’t have liaison officers in every country of the world. It relies on members of the Department to do a lot of its messenger work.”
“I still wouldn’t do it.”
“But what if the Department, in its wisdom, told you that the information you were to pick up was from a foreign security agency that routinely tortured its prisoners. And what if the information was needed to protect Canadian property and lives? Would you do it?”
“With respect sir, there’s no morally acceptable answer to your question.”
“But we live in the real world, Mr. Cadotte. Anyone wanting to work in the Department sooner or later will be faced with issues like the one I raised. Please answer my question.”
From the tone of Longshaft’s voice, I was sure I would fail the oral exam if I didn’t at least make an effort to answer and tried to temporize. “Not just to protect Canadian property and lives,” I said. “The bar wouldn’t be high enough.”
“But what if you were told it was to safeguard Canada’s national security, which you have just argued trumped national unity and human rights as foreign policy priorities?”
“In exceptional circumstances like those, maybe I would,” I said, aware that I was now wading into deep dirty waters. “But I would need to know more.”
“What if I told you the information could stop terrorists from exploding a miniature nuclear bomb in downtown Toronto and killing tens of thousands of people?”
“That’s a far-fetched example but I’d definitely be on side. Everybody would be on side.”
“But what if it wasn’t to prevent a disaster like that, but to save one Canadian life?”
“I wouldn’t do it. The moral cost of torturing someone to save one life, even if Canadians weren’t he ones doing the torturing, would be too high.”
“Ah! Now we are getting into moral costs. What do you understand by that term?”
“I mean the corruption of character.”
“Personal or national?”
“Both.”
“Now, what if the
