Canadians in Trouble Abroad: Citizenship, Personal Security, and North American Regionalization

Abstract

This article concerns itself with what happens to the universal/particular character of citizenship in the context of North American regionalization. It takes as a starting point several incidents where Canadian citizens have called on their government to help them through crisis situations abroad, and then taken it to task for not helping enough. The cases analysed involve Canadian tourists in Mexico who died violently and whose families have used the media to pressure the Canadian government to obtain justice from Mexico. Mass calls for help following natural disasters and war, and the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen “rendered” by the United States to Syria where he was tortured, are also considered to conceptualize “citizens in trouble abroad” claims. The article finds that such claims reinforce a Canadian sense of citizenship where political identity remains rooted firmly with(in) the nation‐state, despite the country's engagement in a deep regionalization project. Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen.1

Explaining Post‐9/11 North American Regionalism: Of Clutter, Constraints, and Chaos

“…Operating behind protective walls or within fortresses raises costs for all of these groups, whether viewed from the consumer purchasing power perspective, profit‐seeking trade‐offs that corporations seek with policy makers, politicians mobilizing immigrants for votes, or voters interpreting crises, like 9/11, or wars, as in Iraq, through partisan lenses. Attempts to brew integrative ideologies, such as over environmental protection (see VanNijnatten 2007) or human rights (see Denis 2007), 7 may well boost trilateral hopes and motivate increased participation from nonstate actors. However, it also unwittingly clutters the policy‐making space with often contradictory demands.…”

“…Where it does not overlap, possible derailment and reversals may be expected since those “safer” values find more protection under nationalistic frameworks than a regional one. A Canadian citizen, for example, might find her values better safeguarded by her own country (see e.g., Denis 2007) than by any regional agency within the larger North America. In the final analysis, subjective differences in state policies or cultural underpinnings impede North American security community tasks more than objective external threats, such as terrorism (which can rally the three countries into joint action, but only briefly).…”

Note from the Editor

“…Perhaps surprisingly, submissions to P&P on Canadian politics and policy issues have always been a rather “mixed bag” ranging from criminal youth policy (Heinmiller, Hennigar, and Kopec ) to Claude Denis’ () memorable and engagingly written “Canadians in Trouble Abroad.” Our final study by Massie and Zyla looks at the perennial discussions surrounding free riding and applies them to explain why second‐tier powers, like Canada, decided not to free ride in lending substantial and risky military support to the U.S.‐led interventions in Afghanistan. While this exploration of disproportionate military burden sharing is decidedly innovative, it is interesting to compare it to a similar contribution to the journal on bilateral cooperation and bounded sovereignty between the United States and Canada of nine years ago (see Biswas ).…”