Henry Chan is a Saskatoon-based political commentator, spokesman and former co-director of Saskatchewan Stands with Hong Kong, and sits on the board of the Canadian Coalition for a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry.Margaret Thatcher once said that "when I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business called rent-a-spine." She wasn’t talking about herself; she was mocking those who lacked one. The line distilled her frustration with politicians who bent to every political draft, guided more by polling than principle. It’s a jab that still lands. In a CBC interview with Peter Mansbridge, Thatcher added that “lots of people [...] have no principle and therefore they regard pragmatism as a thing.” Canada’s leadership today increasingly resembles Thatcher’s criticism. Conviction has been replaced by calibration, and moral clarity by managerial language. Faint illogical pragmatism triumphs above conviction and core principles.Here are some recent examples. When Foreign Minister Anita Anand described Canada as being in a “strategic partnership with China,” and premiers from both sides ramped up rhetoric on tariffs for Chinese EVs, the words were pragmatic in intent but revealing in tone. More recently, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been signalling that Canada is at a "turning point" with China. These comments offer a clear national coordinated notion that when we are pressured, we forget about principles and morals. Our reputation was not built on such caution and hedging. For decades, Canada was known for conviction and standing on principles. We helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We stood against apartheid. We were the instigator of peacekeeping, and we shaped the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Those stands were rarely convenient, but they gave Canada moral weight on the world stage.We have since drifted from being a respected international voice. In the mid-1980s, Canada spent roughly 2% of GDP on defence — close to NATO’s standard. By 2014, that number had fallen to 1%, even as global instability grew. NATO allies have since reversed that decline, rebuilding capacity after Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Canada’s spending has only inched upward to about 1.37%. Budgets are moral checks; how much a country is willing to spend on defence signals it's responsible on the international stage. .Our spine is also missing in our diplomacy. When China detains Canadians, attacks our canola export, or interferes in our democratic institutions, Ottawa responds with “dialogue.” When provinces feel the pressure from authoritarianism, they quickly plead for accommodation and access. Each decision seems reasonable in isolation; together, they suggest paralysis. Pragmatism untethered from principle is not balance — it’s mere avoidance of making tough decisions.Other democracies have faced similar tests and chosen clarity over compromise. In 2018, Australia enacted broad anti-foreign interference laws and accepted Beijing’s retaliation rather than dilute its sovereignty. In 2019, when Sweden was threatened by China for allowing PEN International to award Gui Minhai a freedom of speech prize, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven declared, “We are not going to give in to this type of threat. We have freedom of expression in Sweden and that’s how it is, period.” In 2020, the Czech Senate condemned China’s treatment of Taiwan as “bullying,” and its then–Senate president led a 90-member delegation to Taipei, declaring, “I am Taiwanese.” Beijing fumed; Prague held firm. Norway, after years of diplomatic freeze following the Nobel Peace Prize for dissident Liu Xiaobo, refused to apologize — and Beijing eventually relented. And Taiwan itself stands as the clearest example of conviction under pressure: a democracy of 23 million that resists coercion not with bluster but with competence, transparency, and trust in its citizens..These examples show that moral clarity reduces vulnerability because it leaves adversaries less room to exploit ambiguity. Rather than pragmatism, these countries stood on principles and said it. Short-term cost bought long-term credibility.Canada’s credibility deficit runs deeper than defence budgets. In 1995, we ranked first on the United Nations Human Development Index and deployed more than 3,000 peacekeepers at our peak. Today, we rank 16th and currently deploy fewer than 60. That is not mere decline; it is disengagement — a quiet retreat from the belief that Canada can shape events rather than observe them.Recovering conviction begins with frankness with stakeholders and voters. Canadians deserve honesty about the trade-offs between possible spineless prosperity and principle. A clear-eyed debate about dependency on authoritarian markets would strengthen public confidence.Trade diversification, investment in value-added capacity, and credible defence funding are not separate policy files; they are instruments of sovereignty and strength. Federal ministers cannot speak of “strategic partnership” with a regime that is actively trying to undermine our democratic institution and suppress dissent, just as premiers cannot invoke provincial sovereignty while appealing to that same regime for favour.Thatcher’s remark endures because democracies often talk themselves into moral amnesia. Canada’s problem is not malice but timidity, a learned habit of treating conviction as impolite and confrontational. Yet conviction was once our competitive advantage. It made our diplomacy respected and our promises believable.If we want our voice to matter again, we don’t need to rent a spine. We just need to remember we had one — and use it.Henry Chan is a Saskatoon-based political commentator, spokesman and former co-director of Saskatchewan Stands with Hong Kong, and sits on the board of the Canadian Coalition for a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry.
