Publication

This paper examines the foreign policy that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s three Conservative governments have pursued since January 2006. The author argues that this foreign policy is so unlike that which came before that it could be called 'the big break'. Tracing the arc of Canada's engagement with the world from the end of WWII up until today, it examines how the big break came about and what it looks like. The author argues that while future governments may seek to reverse this Conservative reversal of the Laurentian approach, the breadth and depth of the Conservative coalition mean that at least some of the big break is likely to endure.