Pearson’s Path to Development

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

ISSN: 1192-6422 (Print) 2157-0817 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcfp20

Lester B Pearson's road to development Robert Greenhill & Marina Sharpe To cite this article: Robert Greenhill & Marina Sharpe (2018): Lester B Pearson's road to development, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2018.1522262 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2018.1522262

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CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY JOURNAL https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2018.1522262

Lester B Pearson’s road to development Robert Greenhill and Marina Sharpe Global Canada, Montreal, Canada ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS

During the 1950s and 60s, Lester Pearson came to see international assistance as central to Canada’s constructive international engagement. Yet how Canada’s greatest diplomat became a key architect of, and advocate for, international assistance remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to chart the evolution of Pearson’s thinking regarding international assistance, in a presentation organized chronologically around the major chapters of Pearson’s career. It enhances the narrative of a storied political career, consolidates Pearson’s thinking on a critical issue and provides historical insight relevant to contemporary official development assistance policy-making.

Canada; foreign aid; international assistance; international development; Lester Pearson; Pearsonian diplomacy; Pearsonian internationalism

RÉSUMÉ

Dans les années 50 et 60, Lester Pearson a fait de l’aide internationale une composante centrale de l’engagement constructif du Canada au plan international. Pourtant les raisons pour lesquelles le plus grand diplomate canadien est devenu un architecte et un défenseur majeur de l’aide internationale demeurent relativement peu explorées. Cet article se donne pour objectif de retracer l’évolution de la pensée de Pearson concernant l’aide internationale, à travers une présentation organisée chronologiquement autour des périodes majeures de sa carrière. Il soutient le récit d’une carrière bien remplie, conforte la pensée de Pearson sur un sujet critique et offre un aperçu historique pertinent, relativement à la politique contemporaine officielle de l’aide au développement.

Introduction Speaking at an Ottawa rally shortly after his Liberal Party’s 2015 election victory, Justin Trudeau underlined the importance of Canada’s “compassionate and constructive voice in the world”. This compassionate and constructive international voice is closely associated with Lester Bowles Pearson. Among his many achievements, Pearson was involved in founding the UN and championed its peacekeeping role, including during the Suez Crisis, for which he received the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize. Such international engagement is often described as “Pearsonian diplomacy” or “Pearsonian internationalism”. According to Munton and Keating, the latter term “escapes explicit definition” (2001, p. 528), however they provide an exhaustive history of internationalism, including Pearsonian CONTACT Marina Sharpe marina.sharpe@global-canada.org West, Suite 490, Westmount, Quebec, H3Z 2Y5 Canada © 2018 NPSIA

Global Canada, Research, 4150 Ste Catherine Street

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internationalism, in Canadian foreign policy (pp. 525–532), and Pearsonian internationalism has been summarized by McKercher and Perras (2017) as including the use of multilateral fora, peacekeeping and mediation and a commitment to good international citizenship.1 Yet most conceptualisations of Pearsonian diplomacy or internationalism omit a critical element of Pearson’s worldview: the importance he came to accord to international assistance. In other words, “what is missing in most attempts to analyse Pearsonian internationalism is the parallel stress on caring, sharing and compassion” (Melakopides 1998, p. 85).

According to Stairs, “there was certainly evidence in … [Pearson’s] career after 1945 of an interest in promoting the more ancillary of the conditions of peace – the economic prosperity of the disadvantaged abroad not least among them” (1999, p. 38). As his understanding of the world evolved during the 1950s and 60s, Pearson came to see international assistance as central to Canada’s international engagement. Yet how Canada’s greatest diplomat became a key architect of, and advocate for, international assistance remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to chart the evolution of Pearson’s thinking regarding international assistance, in his own words wherever possible, to consolidate his thinking on development for the historical record. It enhances the narrative of a storied political career, contributes to understanding of Pearson’s thinking around a critical issue and provides historical insight relevant to contemporary official development assistance policy-making.

Pearson’s international career commenced when he joined Canada’s Department of External Affairs in 1928, after time spent serving in World War I, studying at the Universities of Toronto and Oxford, working in a Chicago abattoir and teaching history at the University of Toronto. In 1935, he was assigned to the Canadian High Commission in London. In 1942, he was posted to the Canadian embassy in Washington, becoming ambassador in 1945. In 1946, Pearson became Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs. He served in this role until 1948, when he was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for the now abolished Ontario riding of Algoma East and appointed Secretary of State for External Affairs. In 1952, while Secretary of State for External Affairs, Pearson served as President of the UN General Assembly. In 1957, the year he won the Peace Prize, Pearson announced his candidacy for leadership of the Liberal party, winning the contest in January 1958. He served as Leader of the Opposition from 1958 until 1963 and as Prime Minister from April 1963 until his retirement from politics in April 1968. In August 1968, Pearson accepted an invitation from World Bank President Robert McNamara to chair a commission that would address critical issues in international assistance. The Commission on International Development’s report – titled Partners in Development but commonly referred to as the Pearson Report – was submitted to McNamara about a year later. Pearson also helped create the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and chaired its board of governors from the time of the organization’s founding in 1970 up until his death in December of 1972.

Pearson’s engagement with international development increased dramatically over the course of this exceptional career, particularly following his retirement from politics. After five years as Prime Minister, once he could choose how to spend his time, Pearson decided to devote it to development issues. Indeed, in accepting McNamara’s invitation to chair the Commission on International Development, Pearson stated that there was “no problem more important to the future of … peace and stability of a world [that

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was] becoming increasingly divided into rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped”.

Such ongoing disparity, he continued, was “not likely to promote peace in the family of man [since the] … [a]nimosities that will arise from it are incalculable and explosive” (cited in Brushett 2015, p. 84).

Three factors likely made critical contributions to the importance Pearson increasingly accorded to international assistance as an instrument of global peace. First, his early exposure to developing countries through his travels in Asia, combined with technological change, decolonization and the admission of newly independent African and Asian states to the UN, enlarged Pearson’s worldview; he started his career as an Atlanticist and ended it a globalist. Alongside this expanding perspective, Pearson’s character probably also played a role. He was deeply influenced by the missionary and Social Gospel traditions of his Methodist upbringing, and an intellectually curious person who sought to develop pragmatic tools to proactively address the issues he cared about, not least peace and security. Third, Pearson’s career trajectory – from diplomat and public servant to minister to Prime Minister to respected international statesman – created opportunities for him to develop his toolbox, which included diplomacy, multilateralism, peacekeeping and international assistance.

The reasoning behind Pearson’s support for international assistance also evolved over time. Publicly at least, Pearson’s initial support for international assistance was based on its role in fighting communism. It quickly became clear, however, that Pearson also – and had likely always – believed in development for moral reasons.2 Furthermore, Pearson soon voiced his opposition to the transactional use of international assistance in external relations. Pearson’s early Cold War and moral view of international assistance was then overtaken by a three-part rationale, first in evidence when he was Leader of the Opposition. He would go on to develop and refine this tripartite conceptualization during his time as Prime Minister and following his exit from public life, eventually combining two of the three reasons. In Pearson’s three-part conceptualization, the first rationale for international assistance is moral. The second is the “world community” reason: space travel and other technological advances fostered the emergence of one unified world community, about which governments should be concerned. Third and finally, international assistance is in the national interest, because development contributes to domestic security and stability, including by promoting global public goods such as environmental protection and public health. Towards the end of his career, Pearson seems to have combined reasons two and three, viewing international assistance as essential for promoting global peace, which given Canada’s size and its relatively open economy and society, was critical to its national interests. This evolving view of international assistance is detailed below in a presentation organized chronologically around the major chapters of Pearson’s career, beginning with his time as Secretary of State for External Affairs.

Pearson as secretary of state for external affairs: 1948–1957 Canada’s first major international development commitment was to post-war reconstruction in Europe, alongside the American Marshall Plan. Between 1946 and 1951, Canada made US$2 billion in grants and concessional loans to the United Kingdom and other

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Western European nations. These loans were designed in part to finance Canada’s postwar export surplus with Europe, but according to Pearson were also regarded in Canada as a contribution toward the re-establishment of a multilateral world economy based on liberal, non-discriminatory trade policies and stabilized exchange rates, which would make possible a steady expansion of trade and the maintenance of high levels of employment. (1951, p. 20)

Soon after engaging in the European recovery effort, Canada made its first international development commitment beyond Europe. This was to the Colombo Plan for Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia, known simply as the Colombo Plan. The Colombo Plan was the first-ever multilateral international development program not exclusively linked to post-conflict reconstruction.

The Colombo Plan The Colombo Plan originated at the Commonwealth Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in January 1950. While Canada did not formally commit to the Colombo Plan until over a year after the Ceylon conference, Pearson was from the outset “favourably inclined” to Canada’s contributing (1973, p. 107). According to Pearson’s son Geoffrey (1993), two significant influences in this regard were Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pearson’s travels through Asia on his way home from Colombo. In April 1949 Pearson heard Nehru address a London meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, which he attended on behalf of Louis St Laurent. Pearson was particularly impressed by Nehru’s concluding remarks, which stated democracy in India faced two main threats: “first by a direct onslaught by communism; and secondly by an internal weakening, largely due to unfavourable economic conditions … which would create the conditions in which communism would flourish” (cited in Pearson 1993, p. 50). Nehru repeated this analysis when he addressed Canadian parliament in October 1949: “[t]he troubles and discontents of … the greater part of Asia are the result of obstructed freedom and dire poverty. The remedy is to accelerate the advent of freedom and to remove want” (cited in Pearson 1993, p. 50). These views, according to Geoffrey Pearson, “influenced Pearson when he travelled to Colombo” (1993, p. 51).

The second major influence was Pearson’s travels through India, Pakistan, Burma (now Myanmar), Singapore and Japan on his way home from Colombo, during which he witnessed the extreme poverty of the developing world for the first time since his World War I service in Egypt and Greece. According to Geoffrey Pearson, the trip had a profound effect on Pearson’s sense of world politics – an effect that went beyond hearing … Nehru’s views on the new forces at work in Asia and one that was strengthened by seeing something of the conditions in which people lived. (1993, p. 51)

Here Pearson’s travel journal is instructive. Remarking on Ceylon, Pearson observed that it is a rich island but … the pressure of population on the resources is terrific, and the average income, though higher than in other eastern countries, is only a few dollars a year. It was depressing to learn that even in Ceylon, where conditions are much better than elsewhere in Asia, life expectancy is only approximately 30 years … Economic difficulties arise from the over-population, the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and the almost complete

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dependence of the island on exports of tea, coconut and rubber. (10 February 1950, Library and Archives Canada, MG26 N 1, Vol 22, 1)

He made a similar observation regarding India, noting that the Minister of Heath gave us one of the most interesting days we had on our whole trip when she took us on a tour of some village communities outside Delhi and showed us what they were trying to do in the face of terrific odds to improve life as it has been lived for centuries by 95% of the Indian population. One … gets a deeper understanding of the tremendous obstacles to be overcome before the people of India can be given a better standard of material living.

(10 February 1950, Library and Archives Canada, MG26 N 1, Vol 22, 4)

Thus according to Geoffrey Pearson, Pearson’s support for a Canadian contribution to the Colombo Plan was humanitarian (1993, p. 51).

Pearson’s son is not the only one to attribute moral motives to Pearson’s support for international assistance. The effect of Pearson’s Methodist upbringing as the son and grand-son of ministers remained strong throughout his life. Indeed, Pearson would refer to his opening chapter of Partners in Development as “a Methodist sermon” (cited in Sanger 1970, p. 179). According to Melakopides (1998, pp. 85–86), these values make it likely that Pearson always believed in international assistance for moral reasons.

Pearson’s published writings from the time also reflect this humanitarian imperative. He characterized the purpose of Canada’s Colombo Plan contribution as “simply to assist in raising the standard of living of friendly peoples on the other side of the globe” (1951, p. 21). Pearson also, however, characterized Canada’s support for the Colombo Plan in strategic terms, noting that their “well-being and stability” were important “to the whole of the free world – ourselves included” (1951, p. 21). Initial Colombo Plan beneficiaries were newly independent South and South-East Asian Commonwealth countries, whose new post-colonial democratic institutions had yet to become entrenched. According to Pearson, if ordinary men and women in the free countries of Asia are to feel attached to the new political institutions which they have established, they must be given hope of receiving some tangible benefits for themselves in the form of food, more clothing, better housing and better protection from disease. This can be done only if the wealthier and more highly industrialized countries of the West are willing to assist. (1951, p. 23)

In other words, Western states had an important role to play in ensuring that newly independent countries would experience first-hand the benefits of democracy.

Pearson’s personal humanitarian motives for international assistance notwithstanding, his political mind homed in on this strategic anti-communist rationale for the Colombo Plan, and he used it when selling Canada’s participation in parliament and to his cabinet colleagues. Speaking in the House of Commons after returning from Colombo, Pearson stated: [c]ommunist expansionism may now spill over into southeast Asia … It seemed to all of us at the conference that if the tide of totalitarian expansionism should flow over this general area, not only will the new nations lose the national independence which they have secured so recently, but the forces of the free world will have been driven off all but a relatively small bit of the great Eurasian land mass … If southeast Asia and south Asia are not to be conquered by communism, we of the free democratic world … must demonstrate that it is we and not the Russians who stand for national liberation and economic and social progress. (cited in Spicer 1970, p. 25)

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Similarly, reflecting on the Colombo Plan in his memoirs, Pearson explains that he told his fellow foreign ministers in Ceylon that the “best defence against communism … was a domestic policy of sound economic development”. He went on to state that since “there was little value in preaching the virtues of the democratic way of life to starving people, … [Canada] would be prepared to play … [its] part in any practical scheme for promoting world stability and peace” (1973, p. 107). In promoting economic development in South and South-East Asia, the Colombo Plan would improve living standards there, and in so doing, protect the region and the wider world from communism.

Despite his well-reasoned support for the Colombo Plan, Pearson faced resistance from some ministers, particularly Minister of Finance Douglas Abbott. Pearson’s belief in the Colombo Plan led him and his cabinet allies to pursue their case at the six “difficult and contentious” cabinet meetings it took to secure Canada’s contribution (Cohen 2003, pp.

76–77). When North Korea invaded the south in June 1950, Pearson argued that this made it “more important even than before to do what we can to reassure the governments and the peoples of the East of our interest, our sympathy, and our support” (cited in Cohen 2003, p. 76). In January 1951, knowing that Abbott “continued to feel uneasy about a number of aspects of the Colombo Plan”, Pearson wrote him a secret letter articulating his reasons for supporting it: [a]lthough we are still in the dark about much of Soviet strategy, its main outlines are now clear enough, I think, for us to see that we must retain some allies in Asia if we are to prevent the whole of the Eurasian land-mass from falling under Communist domination. At present, the Governments in control of India and Pakistan are our firm friends, notwithstanding their very natural efforts to avoid becoming too deeply involved in the struggle with the Soviet Union. But these new Governments are highly precarious. They need external financial assistance if they are to have a chance of making some improvement in the appallingly low standard of living of their people and so of sheltering them from the attractions of Communist propaganda. We must try, I believe, to strengthen the will and the capacity of these countries to assist in the struggle against Communist imperialism; and one of the very few ways we can do so is by showing a practical interest in their economic welfare.

Pearson also addressed Abbott’s principal concern about the Colombo Plan: that the quantum of assistance proposed would be insufficient to significantly improve economic development in South-East Asia. Pearson agreed that “when set beside the $12 billion … appropriated for economic recovery in Western Europe, the $3 billion of external finance for a program of economic development in South and South-East Asia over a sixyear period seems extremely small”. He went on, however, to note that “$3 billion may not be far from the proper figure”, because of the “sharp limitations on the rate at which external capital can be absorbed by countries so poor as India and Pakistan” and because “the chief responsibility for development in South and South-East Asia must rest with the Governments and peoples of the countries in the area”. As a result, “those Governments must raise themselves the great bulk of the local currency which will be required, and the scarcity of internal finance must impose a sharp limitation on the rate at which external capital can be absorbed”. He concluded by noting that the amount proposed struck a rough, but reasonably realistic, balance between the amount of external assistance which, ideally, they might like and the amount which, in fact, they believe they will be able to make good use of over the next six years. (Lester Pearson, Letter to Douglas Abbott dated 17 January 1951, Documents on Canadian External Relations http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/

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100/206/301/faitc-aecic/history/2013-05-03/www.international.gc.ca/department/historyhistoire/dcer/details-en.asp@intRefId=5921 [accessed 28 June 2018])

Pearson ultimately persuaded the Prime Minister and the rest of cabinet and on 21 February 1951 announced that Canada had committed US$25 million a year for six years to the Colombo Plan. Pearson is said to have felt that getting cabinet to commit to the Colombo Plan “was tougher than negotiating for peacekeepers to enter the Suez crisis” (Munson 2017), which portrays the scale of the challenge Pearson faced and puts his success into proper perspective. Many years later, Canadian poet and diplomat Douglas LePan would reflect that Canada’s commitment to the Colombo Plan “lastingly changed Canadian life”, setting the stage for further international development activity: “[w]hat was striking to … [LePan] was how far Canada has come in its ambitions in the developing world, and how pivotal Pearson was in advancing them” (Cohen 2003, p. 77).

Post-Colombo Plan thinking While Pearson’s personal rationale for Canadian international development assistance seems to have always relied on both moral and strategic considerations, publicly he framed international assistance strategically in terms of the fight against communism.

However, following the Colombo Plan’s approval, Pearson increasingly introduced moral and humanitarian motives as primary justifications. For example, when speaking at the Conference on Canadian Aid to Underdeveloped Countries in 1955, Pearson stated, [i]t sometimes seems to me that we in the West come near to owing at least one debt of gratitude to the international communists … for helping to keep us up to the mark in these matters. It is a sorry commentary on the postwar period that without them and the threat which they represent we might not so readily have done what we should have been doing anyway. (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 22)

Pearson also became sceptical that international assistance could buy anti-communist allies. Speaking at Princeton University in 1955, he noted the importance of guarding against any false idea that we can purchase or should try to purchase allies. … The East will not become a mercenary in our ranks. It would be deplorable if Asians believed that Westerners had insulted their dignity, or misread their integrity, by entertaining such notions. (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 31)

Pearson went further before the Standing Committee on External Affairs in 1956, when he argued for a delinking of international assistance from Cold War aims: [t]here is another gap in policy which is hurting the West; that is the separation between economic and technical aid to underdeveloped countries and political objectives; or, maybe I should put it this way: we are suffering from efforts to close that gap in the wrong way by associating aid with the acceptance on the part of the receiving countries of ‘cold war’ political and strategic objectives. I think myself … that the purpose of foreign aid is as important as the aid itself. Aid of this kind, economic assistance of any kind on an international scale, is, I admit, bound to be a political act of some kind. The question is: what kind? (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 14)

Pearson would go on to answer this question during the balance of his career, particularly following his retirement from politics. However, the commencement address he delivered

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at Clark University in June 1956, followed by a speech he gave in 1961 while Leader of the Opposition, provide an early public articulation of what would emerge as Pearson’s tripartite conceptualization of why Canada should provide international assistance, which he maintained for the balance of his career, albeit with some evolution. This three-part view expands upon the dual humanitarian and strategic anti-communist rationale Pearson had articulated prior to 1956.

Pearson’s Clark University address began by stating the need for international assistance. He then went on to ask why we should “bother at all?”. His response to this rhetorical question related primarily to enlightened self-interest: while the element of goodwill and neighborliness does enter into these matters, as it does in their domestic manifestations, equally or more important is the long-term consideration of our own enlightened self-interest. Today we all want peace … But we are not always willing to do the things or make the sacrifices that ensure peace. Are we willing to accept, for instance, the proposition that there will be no peace in this small world if it consists of ‘residential areas surrounded by slums’? The domestic analogy applies. Every free democratic government today accepts the fact – and most of them act on it – that national stability, welfare and progress are not possible if the poor are allowed to get poorer while the rich get richer. Inequalities and deprivations within the nation that are considered intolerable mean unrest, ferment and ultimate explosion. The same result will inevitably and inexorably occur internationally, if hundreds of millions of people feel condemned indefinitely to an existence on or below the edge of subsistence; hopeless and helpless and bitter; easy victims for extreme ideas and extremist agitators. (Pearson 1964, pp. 177–178)

Pearson would go on to make this point – that stability is not possible in conditions of deprivation – in more pragmatic terms when speaking as Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons in September 1961.

Pearson as leader of the opposition: 1958–1963 Pearson’s 1961 House of Commons speech on international assistance began with an outline of his three-part view of why Canada should devote resources to it: we help these countries because it is a good thing for us to do, it is a good thing for the peace of the world and because the world is one. Indeed, the world cannot exist half poverty-stricken and half an affluent society. (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 10)

In his 1969 Leffingwell Lectures to the Council on Foreign Relations, Pearson would refine this tripartite rationale for international assistance, explaining that there is a moral obligation to assist, that it is important because all peoples belong to a single world community and that the peace and prosperity that Canadians enjoy was vitally linked to global peace and prosperity (Pearson 1970, chapter 2). These three reasons are addressed in more detail below; this 1961 speech may represent their germ.

Pearson’s 1961 speech went on to acknowledge the balance that must be struck between domestic and international spending: I have some sympathy for the Minister [of External Affairs] in his desire to discharge his obligations … in respect of international economic assistance. I know that he will get more trouble from the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance than he will from the opposition in this regard because, however idealistic a view we take about our obligations in this matter … , we come up against the exigencies of domestic affairs and the desire of

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the Minister of Finance to balance his budget. As a result, these considerations of domestic policies … perhaps have an effect of what we can do in the field of international economic assistance. There is always a relationship between what can be done in Canada for people who need help and what can be done for people in Pakistan who need help. (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 11)

Yet Pearson then went on to make a forceful plea for increased international assistance by illustrating how domestic stability and security could be bolstered by shifting emphasis from defence to development: we can still do a great deal more and I think we should do more, because after all $40 million, $50 million or $100 million which is wisely spent in international economic assistance in the right places at this time might do more to increase stability and security in the world than spending $100 million or $150 million on some forms of arms defence. Therefore without criticising the government in what has been done I express the hope – and I feel quite strongly about this – that perhaps we can do more in the future than we have in the past in making this contribution, not so much to assist other countries but to assist ourselves; to assist security and stability in the world. (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 16)

In Pearson’s view, international assistance can, like defence spending, also contribute to stability and security. This is a point he would go on to reiterate in his Leffingwell Lectures.

This 1961 speech lies in contrast to Pearson’s December 1957 “Four Faces of Peace” Nobel Lecture, which did not mention international development. Pearson’s Nobel lecture focused on the four ingredients he viewed as essential to peace: free trade, checks on power, diplomacy and inter-cultural exchange. Discussing the first of these, Pearson acknowledged that “peace is reflected in the prosperity of nations” (1964, p. 6), yet mentioned only trade in promoting such prosperity. Speaking in the House of Commons less than four years later, Pearson argued that international assistance “is a good thing for the peace of the world” (cited in Spicer 1966, p. 10). It seems, therefore, that between late 1957 and 1961, Pearson came to view international assistance as an additional “face of peace”.

This can be attributed in part the rising prominence of international assistance in external relations during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Decolonization also played a role. International relations were significantly reconfigured between the mid-1950s and the early 1960s, when many states gained their independence and joined the UN, which is based on the sovereign equality of all member states. There was a major spike in UN membership in 1955, when states including Cambodia, Ceylon, Laos and Nepal joined, and again in 1960, when 16 newly independent African countries and others joined. Prior to this, international affairs had been dominated by developed Western states, including colonial powers. With independence, developing countries began to participate in international relations on an at least theoretically equal footing. This may have caused Pearson’s perspective to become less Atlantic and more global and raised concern about economic and social disparities between states that were otherwise sovereign equals.

This concern was in evidence in an address to the Oxford Conference on Tensions in Development, which Pearson delivered in August 1961. Speaking about the struggle for decolonization, Pearson observed that [p]erhaps we find the scope and speed of these changes at times terrifying. However, we should not let these anxieties themselves determine our politics and reactions. We have to maintain faith in the principles of this “revolution of rising expectations” which we have

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helped to let loose. As we believe in freedom and self-government and greater human welfare for ourselves, so we must believe in it for all men. (1964, p. 177)

Pearson as prime minister: 1963–1968 Given this reconfiguration of international relations and the support for international assistance he voiced as Leader of the Opposition in 1961, it is not surprising that assistance flows increased quickly and significantly after Pearson became Prime Minister in April 1963. International assistance rose by 280 per cent between 1964 and 1967, Pearson’s last full year in office. In 1962, the year before Pearson became Prime Minister, Canada contributed US$41 million in official development assistance. In 1967, Canada contributed US $194 million.3 In 1960, Canada devoted 0.16 per cent of gross national product (GNP) to international development; by 1966, this figure had risen to 0.33 per cent (Brushett 2015, p. 88). While this figure is low compared to the 0.7 per cent target Pearson would establish after leaving office, the increase in international assistance as a share of national income during Pearson’s tenure as Prime Minister is the largest of any Canadian government in history. Most went to Colombo Plan countries (principally India, followed by Pakistan, Ceylon and Malaysia); former French colonies also received an increasing share of assistance, due in large part to domestic pressures generated by Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, as did Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean (Donaghy and Muirhead 2008, p.

286). Canadian multilateral aid delivered under UN auspices also rose during Pearson’s premiership (Morrison 1998, p. 453), in part because Pearson believed firmly in the UN as a primary vehicle through which to deliver international assistance (1964, p. 175).

Reflecting on this spike in his memoirs, Pearson wrote: when I became Prime Minister, there was a new interest and commitment to foreign aid, especially during the period 1963–5. Paul Martin, as Secretary of State for External Affairs, in November 1963 proposed the acceptance of the principle of a phased expansion of the Canadian aid effort and almost doubling of budgetary and non-budgetary items of the Canadian aid programme over the two-year period. I supported him in this; the Cabinet adopted the recommendations and authorized him to announce the programme for 1964–5 in the House of Commons. (1973, p. 112)

Pearson went on to explain that there were three main factors that contributed to this increase in international assistance: [i]n the first place, there were strong humanitarian considerations – which need not be spelled out, but should not be obscured. Second, our aid programmes were an integral part of our foreign policy and, in recent years, the level of our aid, relative to that of other major donors, had declined sharply. This had to be corrected. Third, an increased aid programme would indirectly stimulate the Canadian economy. While this was not the main object of our aid programme, it was, nevertheless, important. Canada, as a trading nation, could expect to benefit in the long term from the enlarged world trading patterns which would accompany the economic expansion of the less developed countries which our aid programme was designed to help. (1973, p. 112)

Here again we see two of the three factors that Pearson would later explicitly identify as the reasons for international assistance: the moral reason and the national interest, here conceptualized in economic terms. Pratt provides more detail on Pearson’s point about keeping up with allies, attributing the increase in international assistance during the

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1960s to “a foreign policy concern to maintain Canada’s standing with the US-led anticommunist alliance” (Pratt 1994, p. 340). Additionally, according to Chapnick (2008, p.

28), Pearson clearly believed “in the role of financial aid in promoting and maintaining global security”. There may have been an additional fifth reason for expanding international assistance. In the 1963–64 bilateral aid budget, francophone Africa received US $300,000; in 1964–65, this grew to US$4,000,000, thereby engaging Quebec (Spicer 1970, p. 26). Thus in addition to humanitarianism, keeping up with peers, the national interest and global security, Pearson may have viewed international assistance as a tool to promote national unity.

Pearson continued to address international assistance throughout his time as Prime Minister. According to Ward (1975, p. 245), during the 1960s he was “one of the most consistent and convincing advocates of worldwide economic assistance”. It was, however, often handled by Paul Martin, Pearson’s Secretary of State for External Affairs who was himself a proponent of international assistance, in particular because of “a combination of domestic crises and, after 1965, … [Pearson’s] fatigue and preoccupation with retirement” (Thordarson 1976, p. 680). Speaking to a Quebec audience in February 1965, Martin articulated why Pearson’s government prioritized international assistance. He began with a combination of the moral and “world community” rationales, explaining that international assistance “rests upon the recognition that, as flagrant disparities in human wealth and welfare are no longer morally acceptable within a single community, whether it be local or national, the same principal is applicable to the larger world community”. Martin then went on to present the national interest case, in four dimensions: the stimulation of Canadian economic growth; “Canadian producers, engineers and educators” can “gain valuable experience” and “Canadian products and skills” can “become known in new areas”; “the horizons of Canadians are enlarged and Canada’s image abroad is more clearly projected”; and “the use of Canadian goods and services gives Canadians a stake in foreign aid” (cited in Melakopides 1998, p. 78). Additionally, Martin – along with Pearson’s Minister of Finance Mitchell Sharp – believed the government should “give serious consideration to shifting money from defence to international development” to reinvigorate Canada’s international presence (Brushett 2015, pp. 87–88).

In 1966, Martin brought Montreal businessman Maurice Strong to Ottawa “to give new impetus and direction to the expansion of the external aid programme” (Plumptre 1975, p.

154). Strong was instrumental in founding the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and served as its first president. While CIDA was established in 1968 under Pierre Trudeau, its foundations were laid under Pearson’s leadership. More generally, Pearson established the groundwork that allowed Trudeau to take up the mantle on international development. According to Brushett (2015, p. 96), Pearson’s development policies placed Canada “in a position to lead on this matter and allowed Trudeau to use Canada’s … [international development assistance] policies to express Canada’s national identity as [a] ‘Just Society’ to the wider world”.

In addition to CIDA, Pearson was involved in the formation of another Canadian development institution. Speaking to the Canadian Political Science Association at Carleton University in June 1967, he announced plans for the creation of an institute that would ultimately be established three years later as the IDRC:

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[i]f free civilization is to survive and grow, and there are times these days when we wonder whether that’s going to happen, we must very soon find vastly improved methods for extending the benefits of modern industrial and technical progress to the whole world community of man. The rapidly advancing technology and the complex interrelationships of today’s global society demand that the fundamental problems of man be dealt with on an international and interprofessional basis. The challenge for international development is to find new instruments for concentrating more interest and more resources on the application on a global basis of the latest technology to the solution of man’s economic and social problems. One idea for a new Canadian initiative to meet this challenge which is being considered by the government is the establishment of a research centre for international development. …

After nearly twenty years of trial and error in this field of international cooperation, we have learned a great deal about what can and what cannot be done. But at the present time, there is no single institution in the world that acts as an internationally recognized focal point for concentrating research and study in this field which holds such a vital challenge to all of humanity. … We cannot, even if we wished, become a great power in a political or military sense. But we have already proven in our peace-keeping efforts that we can make a good contribution to world order. Perhaps it will now prove possible for us to add a new dimension to our modest role in the world community by providing this centre for research.

(Pearson 1973, p. 271)

The IDRC was conceived by Strong and established under Trudeau, but it was strongly supported by Pearson while he was Prime Minister. The organization has a mandate to support applied research in, and by scientists from, developing countries.

Pearson as elder statesman: 1968–1972 Pearson was clearly an advocate for international development throughout his political career. As a politician, however, Pearson was evidently focused on the many other matters of government (including healthcare, the national pension plan, the flag and national unity). After his retirement from politics in April 1968, Pearson initially planned to devote the remainder of his career to teaching at Carleton, compiling his writings and completing his memoirs. However, the issue of international development came to occupy most of his time and energy. He chaired the IDRC’s Board of Governors and the World Bank’s Commission on International Development and he delivered several highprofile lectures that focused or touched on development.

The International Development Research Centre Pearson chaired the IDRC’s board of governors from the time of its establishment in May 1970 up until his death in December 1972. During this time, Pearson was “able to influence the Centre’s very early development”, imbuing it with “the pragmatism that animated his consideration of the international aid environment” (Muirhead and Harpelle 2010, p. 13).

Pearson was also instrumental in hiring the “very pragmatic” David Hopper as the IDRC’s first president (Muirhead and Harpelle 2010, p. 13). Muirhead and Harpelle (2010, p. 14) conclude that because of “its three midwives, Hopper, Pearson, and Strong, [the] IDRC was and remains an intensely pragmatic organization, espousing a number of overriding principles as its organizational framework”, including the emphasis on funding research for development and the idea that development must be evidence-based.

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The IDRC also adheres to the idea that development must originate within developing countries themselves, a view Pearson shared. He expressed it early on, in his letter to Abbott supporting the Colombo Plan, and demonstrated the view again in a 1970 speech at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough College. He argued that no country will be able to go ahead except by its own effort and its own policies and the wise use of its own resources, human and material. All that external aid can do … is to help the country help itself. The final responsibility rests at home. However, if a country is trying to go forward, to help itself, then we who are more fortunate have an obligation to assist in that process. (cited in Muirhead and Harpelle 2010, pp. 12–13)

Pearson would go on to repeat this point in one of his Reith Lectures, which are discussed below.

The Commission on International Development and the Partners in Development report Pearson was invited by McNamara to chair the World Bank’s Commission on International Development, which was formed to assess international development practice, particularly in light of falling donor – notably American – contributions. The Commission published its Partners in Development report in October 1969. It made about 30 recommendations, broadly grouped into ten categories: trade, foreign investment, economic growth, the volume of aid, debt relief, aid administration, technical assistance, population control, aid to education and research and multilateral aid. The most influential of the report’s recommendations was that states devote one per cent of their GNP to international assistance by 1975, with 0.7 per cent coming directly from government. This 0.7 per cent target persists to this day, with five countries having achieved it in 2016 and the United Kingdom having enshrined its commitment to 0.7 per cent into law in 2015.

Of Partners in Development’s 11 chapters, Pearson penned the first (Hamilton 1973, p.

140), titled “A Question of Will”. The section headed “Why Aid?” reflects the tripartite rationale that Pearson had already articulated and would go on to repeat. It begins with the social justice reason: “it is only right for those who have to share with those who have not”. It then goes on to state the “enlightened and constructive self-interest” rationale, with two qualifiers. First, while international assistance may “establish or strengthen a friendly political relationship”, it should not be given solely to secure an alliance or a political advantage. Indeed, the importance of untying international assistance was among Partners in Development’s major themes. Second, the national interest should be broadly defined in terms of global security and prosperity based on “a common concern for the common problems of all peoples”, including pollution, epidemics and disease, nutrition, population growth and education. Finally, the report responds to the question “why aid?” with the “world community” answer: “[p]eople today are increasingly aware of a world, as well as a national, community” and governments must play their “part in cooperation with all others to ensure that all people have a reasonable chance to share in the resources of the world, which should be developed for the benefit of all”. In concluding his “Why Aid?” analysis with remarkable foresight, Pearson called international development “a great challenge of our age” and went on to argue that our “response to it will show whether we understand the implications of interdependence or whether we prefer to delude ourselves that the poverty and deprivation of the great majority of mankind can

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be ignored without tragic consequences for all” (The Commission on International Development 1969, pp. 8–11).

In Canada, the Commission on International Development and its report “in many ways re-established international development assistance as both just and necessary … [and] helped set off what many observers have called the golden age of Canadian international development diplomacy” under Trudeau, characterized by Canada thoroughly living up “to the middle power idea – that of a financially supportive, initiative-taking mediating actor with a … progressive development philosophy” (Brushett 2015, p. 96). Internationally, the report helped shift the development discourse from its Cold War roots to a focus on humanitarianism and economic growth.

While the Commission on International Development was completing its work and following the submission of its report, Pearson delivered several speeches articulating his views on international development. In November and December of 1968, he gave the BBC’s annual Reith Lectures. At the same time the following year, he gave the Council on Foreign Relations’ Russell C Leffingwell Lectures, which he focused on development.

Finally, in 1972, Pearson gave a speech at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on the occasion of receiving the Victor Gollancz Humanity Award; this speech focused in large part on international development. These speeches were made in a personal capacity, thus the views they express are directly attributable to Pearson, whereas those in the jointlyauthored Partners in Development report likely represent some degree of compromise.

The speeches illustrate Pearson’s conviction about the importance of international assistance and his developing rationale in this regard, as well as his prescient understanding of some of the challenges of international assistance.

The Reith Lectures Pearson’s six separate Reith Lectures were together titled “In the Family of Man”. They examined the state of political and economic development worldwide and the prospects for global peace. The fourth lecture in the series, titled “Co-operation Through Economics”, addressed “economic developments and the way they can influence political relationships; especially those between the materially developed and less-developed countries which constitute the other great division in the family of man” (the first “great division” being between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) (Pearson 1969, p. 55). Pearson discussed a number of topics within this broad theme, including trade, and regarding international assistance he reiterated many points he had made previously.

Importantly, the “Co-operation Through Economics” lecture provides what is perhaps the most detailed exposition of Pearson’s “world community” rationale for international assistance: [m]ost of the poorer people now know about the rest of the world and they know that disease and hunger and deprivation are not inevitable. They know that man can live to seventy instead of thirty-five years. Even in the most remote parts of the world people have now learned something about the technological society; where there are gadgets to make life more comfortable, and diversions to make it more exciting. New hungers have been created, if only for longer life and better health. … But even if there is a country somewhere whose people do not know, or do not want, the material benefits of Western civilization, certainly their leaders do want them

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… we can’t ignore them or the political and economic ideas we ourselves have implanted in their minds by precept and example. (Pearson 1969, pp. 62–63)

Later in the lecture, Pearson (1969, p. 65) made a prescient critique of conditionality, noting simply that “[n]othing could be more self-defeating – less effective in promoting peace and goodwill – than attaching inadmissible political or social conditions to our aid”. Pearson (1969, p. 65) also argued for local ownership of development, reflecting an idea central to the IDRC: “[t]o the greatest possible extent we should place responsibility on the governments and the people of the country to which the aid is offered”. Pearson (1969, p. 69) concluded his fourth Reith Lecture by noting “the broader political value which international collaboration on aid and development may have for all nations”.

The Leffingwell Lectures In Pearson’s first Leffingwell Lecture, titled “The Nature of the Problem”, he introduced the issue of international development and made his belief in international assistance clear, stating that “with economic stagnation and no growth at all, there will be hopelessness, which one day will turn to anger and to conflict – if only the conflict of despair” (1970, p. 9).

Pearson delved into the rationale underlying his conviction about international assistance in his second lecture, “The Case for Cooperation”. He began by elaborating on the dangers of poverty and the related responsibilities of developed states: there is no greater threat to humanity, no greater danger to peace than that from two-thirds of mankind remaining hungry, disillusioned, and desperate. Therefore, those who enjoy the greatest capacity, who have already crossed the threshold of economic development, carry a heavy responsibility. Even though the main burden rests – and must rest – on the governments and peoples of the developing countries themselves, their success, I repeat, will depend to a large extent on what the rich are prepared to do to help. (1970, p. 29)

Pearson went on to devote most of his second lecture to the case for international assistance, articulating three principal reasons.

First, Pearson briefly stated that there is a “moral obligation to assist”: “[i]t is part of the higher nature of man to help those who need help. It is only right for the strong to help the weak, for those who have to share with those who have not”. The second part of Pearson’s case for development cooperation stated that “[c]oncern with the needs of other and poorer nations is also the expression of a new and growing awareness that we belong to a world community, an awareness given a new impetus by our move into outer space”. This advent of global interconnectedness brought about, for Pearson, concern about issues that transcend borders: [w]e now know that wars anywhere in the world can engage us all. The pollution of the environment in one place affects life everywhere. Epidemics and disease have no respect for national boundaries. Many of the challenges of development pose themselves in much the same way in the developed as in the developing countries. Our problems … are universal … the population explosion, illiteracy and ignorance, poverty and pollution are global problems which threaten to make the world a torn and unhappy place. (1970, pp. 32–34)

Pearson was frank about the third and final element of his rationale for international assistance: national interest. Pearson stated unambiguously that “[f]oreign aid is a matter of

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national self-interest. Let there be no misunderstanding on that score”. According to Pearson (1970, p. 36), “[n]ational advantage can legitimately be derived from international cooperation for the development of another country” because a growing and prosperous world economy, with all sharing in the growth, will be in everyone’s interest and to everyone’s advantage. Wretchedness and poverty in one part of the world, with the conflict and desperate hopelessness it creates, is bound to affect stability and progress in all other parts.

This third national interest piece is not actually distinct from the global public good dimension of the second “world community” element. Indeed, Pearson (1970, p. 37) went on in his lecture to intertwine the two, noting that the: world … is becoming – in spite of everything – a single, interdependent community, however difficult it may be at times to see this politically or economically. Moreover, this trend is irreversible since it is rooted in the scientific and technological revolution of our day. We know now that our own national societies cannot possibly be stable and prosperous when privileged groups engross too much of the country’s wealth, when conflict-making gaps between classes increase, when no acknowledged general interest controls and plans economic activity. All this we accept as self-evident within our country, but we are not yet ready to accept it for our world, even though, in that world, men and ideas can now move far more rapidly from Miami to Moscow than they could, a century ago, from London to Manchester.

Pearson later pointed out that this thinking extends to the international plane the observation John F Kennedy had made relative to the domestic context in his 1961 inaugural address: “[i]f a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields address Three years after his Leffingwell Lectures, in his 1972 London speech, Pearson again connected the “world community” and national interest aspects of his three-part case for development, this time effectively collapsing them in one concise statement of the rationale for international assistance: I know that economic development and higher standards of living do not themselves ensure peace, order, and progress; or friendship between peoples. Nevertheless there can be no peace, no security, nothing but ultimate disaster, when a few rich countries with a small minority of the world’s people alone have access to the brave, and frightening, new world of technology, science, and of high material living standards, while the large majority live in deprivation and want, shut off from opportunities of full economic development; but with expectations and aspirations aroused far beyond the hope of realizing them. (1975, p. 250)

According to Thordarson (1976, p. 670), this statement confirmed “what many observers had long suspected – that … [Pearson’s] commitment to development assistance stemmed above all from his view that disparity of wealth was becoming as great a threat to world peace as nuclear conflict, rather than from solely humanitarian motives”.

Others, however, viewed Pearson’s commitment to development as mostly moral or humanitarian. Reflecting on Pearson after his death, former Commission on International Development Executive Secretary Edward Hamilton (1973, p. 142) observed, “the vital point with regard to Pearson is that he honestly and deeply believed that the case

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based on narrow national interest was unnecessary”, and he was also “absolutely firm in his conviction that if governments and peoples could be confronted with the fact that a better lot for the poor is possible, simple compassion and the will to justice would be ample justification for whatever effort was required”. The exposition here suggests that both Thordarson and Hamilton are correct: by the end of his career, Pearson’s belief in international assistance seems to have rested on two principal rationales: the moral reason and the reason of national interest, which incorporated the “world community” element that had earlier been separated out.

In addition to these two reasons for international assistance, Pearson’s London address focused on what were in his view the principal challenges of development: the equitable distribution of economic gains within developing countries in order to mitigate the negative social, cultural and environmental externalities of international assistance. According to Pearson (1975, p. 250), [e]conomic growth, of course, is not everything. Even when growth itself is satisfactory it cannot be divorced from its social consequences and some of these may be disruptive and disturbing. So when we think of development, we must think of the state of society and not merely the state of the economy; of the effect of economic growth on social and cultural values, on the ecology and the environment. We must think of the misery of marginal men as well as the success in maximising national income. … Indeed, we must broaden and deepen the whole concept of development, as something which will lead to the enrichment of life and no merely as a better material standard of living. … we of the economically developed countries resist the temptation to try to make over developing countries in our own image.

Pearson (1975, p. 251) concluded his London speech with a call for developed states to adopt “a whole new strategy for development”, in order to address increasing income disparities between rich and poor countries, untie aid and limit the threat he thought economic growth could pose to the cultures and environments of developing countries. This was Pearson’s last public pronouncement on international development; he died of cancer about six months after speaking in London.

Conclusion Pearson’s understanding of, and commitment to, international assistance increased from around 1950 right up until the time of his death, likely due to a combination of his career trajectory, his expanding worldview – a function of travel, technological change, the increasing prominence of international assistance in external relations and decolonization – and his pragmatism. Despite varied permutations, the rationale underlying Pearson’s belief in international assistance was essentially always based in morals and the national interest, though his conceptualization of the latter evolved. Initially, Pearson viewed national interest in mostly anti-communist terms. Towards the end of his career and life, Pearson settled on an understanding of national interest focused on the security and stability dividend Canada would enjoy if disparities between standards of living around the world could be narrowed. Indeed, over the course of his career, Canada’s greatest diplomat came to view international assistance as the critical tool in promoting international – and hence domestic – peace and security. In his 1957 Nobel lecture, Pearson conceptualized peace as consisting of “four faces”. By 1972, the year that marked the

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end of both his career and his life, Pearson arguably viewed peace as having a fifth face: a significant and ongoing commitment by developed states to international assistance.

Yet this critical element of Pearson’s legacy is often ignored in analyses of his many contributions to Canada and the world. Several factors likely contribute to this oversight. First among these are academic silos. The political scientists and historians who have written about Pearson are not international development theorists, while development theorists for the most part focus on poverty reduction and not on political leadership. Second, international development does not generally capture the public imagination in the way of international relations, because it is preventative. When a development intervention works, nothing dramatic happens, compared with shuttle diplomacy, Security Council debates or actual conflict. Finally, for the last 20 years in Canada, international development has had its own minister. The strategic role of development as a proactive foreign policy instrument to shape a less risky international context may therefore be less obvious to foreign affairs practitioners today than in Pearson’s day. Operating together, these three factors generate a systemic underappreciation of international assistance as a strategic tool to enhance global peace and prosperity, despite this being so central to Pearson’s thinking.

Ward (1975, p. 244) once observed Pearson’s “extraordinarily sensitive awareness of changes in world society and the human condition”, and “the degree to which they must influence the wider goal of achieving a functioning world order”. The astuteness of her observation is clearly evidenced by Pearson’s early identification of the phenomenon of globalization and his prophetic concern about global public goods. Characteristically, therefore, a point Pearson (1970, pp. 34–35) made in one of his Leffingwell Lectures remains strikingly relevant: [t]he drama of this moment in time lies in the fact that, on the one hand, we now have the knowledge and incentive to work towards a world community which recognizes the inescapability of interdependence, while, on the other, we do little enough to show such recognition in national, social, and economic policies. … The acceleration of history, which is largely the result of the bewildering impact of modern technology, has changed the whole concept of national interest. Who can now ask where his country will be in a few decades without asking where the world will be? If we wish that world to be secure and prosperous we must show a concern for the problems of all peoples.

We should heed this perspective of Canada’s greatest diplomat and peacemaker.

Notes 1. Pearson’s international engagement has also been criticized. See, for example, Engler (2012).

2. While the term ‘moral’ may not fully capture the social justice dimension of Pearson’s belief in international assistance, the term is employed here because Pearson used it. For example, he writes that there ‘is a moral obligation to assist’ (Pearson 1970, p. 32).

3. These figures, which are given in current dollars, are derived from stats.oecd.org.

Acknowledgements We thank Kevin Brushett for his feedback on a draft of this paper, Hilary Pearson for her thoughts on her grand-father’s commitment to international development and Andrew Cohen and John English for taking the time to discuss this work with us. We also thank Alexandra McEwen of Library and Archives Canada for her kind assistance with the archival research.

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Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or notfor-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors Robert Greenhill is the Executive Chairman of Global Canada. Prior to this, he was Managing Director at the World Economic Forum and President of the Canadian International Development Agency.

Marina Sharpe is Senior Research Fellow at Global Canada. Prior to this, she was a Steinberg PostDoctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. She holds a DPhil in law from Oxford, where she studied as a Trudeau Scholar.

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