Planet Canada

One of the leading thinkers on Canada's place in the world contends that our country's greatest latent resource is the three million Canadians who don't live here. Educators, entrepreneurs, humanitarians: an entire province's worth of Canadian citizens live outside Canada. Some will return, others won't. But what they all have is the ability, and often the desire, to export Canadian values to a world sorely in need of them. And to act as ambassadors for Canada in industries and societies where diplomatic efforts find little traction. Surely a country with as diverse human resources as Canada ought to plug itself into every corner of the globe. We don't, and sometimes not even when citizens of a country that increasingly finds itself everywhere in the world are asking how they can help.

Failing to put this desire to work, contends bestselling author and longtime foreign correspondent John Stackhouse, is a grave error for a small country whose voice is getting lost behind developing nations of rapidly increasing influence. The soft power we once boasted is getting softer, but we have an unparalleled resource, if we choose to use it. To ensure Canada's place in the world, argues Planet Canada, we need to use the world within Canada.