The myths about Canada’s supposedly progressive role in global affairs are so durable that even former prime minister Stephen Harper couldn’t sully them. The right-wing Harper decade never stopped Canadians from patting themselves on the back, nor has Liberal continuity with the essentials of foreign policy since. The image of Canada’s pivotal role in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and the safeguarding of democracy and human rights around the world remains cherished.

One reason, no doubt, is that the dominant tradition of left scholarship in Canada since the 1970s has taken the form of a kind of left nationalism. Taking its cue from the contemporaneous emergence of World Systems analysis, left scholarship since that time has centered around Canada’s “dependent” status – its domination by the United States, its reliance on primary commodities like crude oil, natural gas, and uranium, and corresponding weakness in manufacturing.

But this analysis, which depicts Canada as an ineffectual if not benign player on the world stage, leaves little room for any investigation of the country’s imperial role — past and present. It directs our attention away from the comfortable niche Canada occupied in the structures of capitalist imperialism, first under British and then US leadership, as well as from its disgraceful treatment of indigenous peoples.