Conservatives have invested a lot of effort convincing Canadians that our country’s international reputation has been destroyed under the leadership of Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau.
During the all-candidates election forum hosted in Sundre, Conservative incumbent Earl Dreeshen and the People’s Party of Canada’s Paul Mitchell kept going on about how Trudeau has supposedly ruined our international reputation; that we’ve become the laughing stock of the world.
Are they perhaps confused with our neighbours to the south?
Because the claim, presented void of any credible evidence, does not hold up against scrutiny.
In 2017, Canada was, according to Country RepTrak by the Reputation Institute, ranked the world’s most reputable nation.
“Our research,” reads a section of the Reputation Institute’s website, “reveals that countries leading in reputation tend to have smaller populations and are admired internationally due to factors beyond economic power. These factors include: the strength of their institutions, the welfare of their inhabitants, and their overall quality of life.”
In other words, a country does not need to be a global superpower with a massive economy to be considered highly reputable. China and Russia are among the worst ranked, and the U.S. is nowhere near the top of the list.
The nations that typically rank among the top-10 are essentially all of the Slavic and Nordic states as well as Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
We were no strangers to that top spot, having during the previous six years before the 2017 ranking placed first four times. In 2016 and 2014, we ended up in second place, dethroned by Sweden and Switzerland respectively.
Last year, Sweden beat us to take top spot as the world’s most reputable country in 2018.
But dropping into seventh place — still a respectable top-10 finish that remains leagues ahead of the U.S., which only just makes the top-40, as well as other powerful countries like France, the UK, Italy and Germany edging into the top-20 — could hardly be considered so irredeemable.
I would submit that our international reputation would suffer far more harm by isolationist Canada-first policies that seek to either slash or even outright eliminate crucial foreign funding and scapegoat refugees and immigrants.
Turning our backs on international commitments to help others will certainly not help improve our standing in the world.
But regardless of our political leanings, we should be proud to live in a country that remains among the world's most respected.
