Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff

A position based on presumed moral superiority does nothing to advance the interests of the Canadian people. ... It is [also] inevitably hypocritical. No state is a bastion of moral virtue. If Canada, in general, seems to pursue a more altruistic international policy than the United States, it is only because we have been shielded from the most unpleasant aspects of international affairs by the United States. This is what allowed our former foreign minister [Pierre Pettigrew] to naively assert that "we are well beyond the traditional domain of power politics as played out between states." Because we do not have the international responsibilities that accrue from superpower status, we have come to believe that we possess a more virtuous national character.