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Russia's President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with Iran's conservative Parliament Speaker on the sidelines of a BRICS parliamentary forum in Saint Petersburg on July 11. VALERY SHARIFULIN/AFP/Getty Images Emerson Csorba is a business executive, previously working in geopolitics . The outcome of the American election underscores Canada’s economic and intellectual dependence on the U.
S. market and the consequences of it. A renewed Trump administration has vowed an aggressively protectionist economic and trade policy, and that has been estimated by Toronto-Dominion Bank to lead to an approximately 2-per-cent drop in Canadian GDP.
This is not a good position for Canada to be in. To get out of it, trade diversification targets must be met while Canada regains its traditional role as interlocutor among powers, both great and emerging. With this objective in mind, it is time for Canada to explore observer status in the BRICS, in which Canada would attend BRICS meetings and further multilateral relations with its members.
The aim? To engage strategically with the many BRICS members positioned between the West and the Global East. In this way, we can better understand the aims of the latter, while walking a tightrope with the United States and other long-standing Western partners. This step will advance our interests and help us play our traditional role as reconciler in a more multipolar world requiring engagement with democracies and nondemocracies – as well as the many countries sitting in between.
While uncomfortable to many, engagement with these BRICS members is paramount as the world becomes resolutely multipolar and dangerous. The idea behind membership in BRICS is that it is better to engage directly in this forum than to keep a distance, which almost surely promises increasing dependence on America and a negligible Canadian role in geopolitics. The BRICS was founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India and China (South Africa joining shortly thereafter) to promote independence from Western financial infrastructure and develop institutions such as the New Development Bank.
The BRICS has since grown, with the recent additions of Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran (Saudi Arabia has been invited and is considering acceptance, though attends meetings; Argentina was invited but has since declined). A recent Oct. 22-24 summit in Kazan, Russia, hosted by President Vladimir Putin, has led to the invitation of Kazakhstan, Turkey, Belarus, Cuba, Indonesia, Nigeria and Vietnam – a mixed bunch.
As is evident in the current and prospective membership, there is little unity – the rivalry between China and India one such example. Many of the BRICS members walk a fine line between China and the West. Canada will soon need to walk this same line to develop new multilateral relations.
The growing size and power of BRICS is undeniable. IMF figures indicate the expanded BRICS accounts for 46 per cent of the world’s population; the G7 just under 10 per cent. It is predicted that the BRICs will account for 37.
6 per cent of world GDP at purchasing power parity in 2027, against 28.2 per cent for the G7. The disparity will grow – the G7 is aging while the BRICS’s populations are young and ambitious.
Observer status in BRICS offers diversification of supply chains through partnership with select members, better access to investment – in turn creating new jobs for citizens – and potentially increased security through strategic balancing of Western and Global East relations. While benefitting economically, Canada can protect its interests by cultivating relations with a wider variety of partners. There is historical precedent in Canada’s strategic engagement with the USSR, China and Cuba as interlocutor for America during the Cold War.
Canada can also engage further with platforms such as La Francophonie, connecting with rising powers in the Global South. The risks of engagement are many. Dialogue with China is challenging; talk to achieve mutual understanding is interpreted by China as weakness rather than strength.
Canada’s relations with India are currently fraught. The Kazan Declaration proposed a range of financial instruments (such as BRICS Pay) designed to enable BRICS countries to undertake cross-border payments and evade any Western economic sanctions. A risk is that what was once a network of developing countries promoting their interests becomes an anti-West alternative to Western alliances.
Engaging with these countries requires strength, resilience and strategy on the part of Canada’s politicians and diplomats. But these characteristics are not specific to BRICS; they are necessary in the world and time we inhabit, and are also needed with America. Canada cannot assume, as has been the case in the past, that America will serve as its protector.
The first Trump presidency suggests hostility as much or more than friendship. If Canada is to play a meaningful role in the new North America, and globally as a reconciler, seeking observer status in BRICS as a step toward more unconventional alliances should be on the table..
