Canada grapples with the effects of deteriorating relations with India and China

On a frigid December evening, ice skaters, bundled up against the cold, zip around an outdoor rink in front of Ottawa’s City Hall. Trees around the rink sparkle with Christmas lights, their bright colors bounce off snow covering the lawn and sidewalks. It is a quintessential Canadian scene, the type that for years shaped how many Canadians saw their place in the world.

Like many Canadians, Jonathan Berkshire Miller grew up with a rosy view of the country’s international role, such as peacekeeping missions.

“Nobody was out there to harm Canadians. And Canadians could be all friends to all people on all issues,” says Miller, the director of foreign affairs, national defense and national security at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank in Ottawa.

But that benign view has been sorely shaken recently.

“We’re starting to wake up to some of these very hard realities, that many states around the world have interests adversarial to Canada,” he says.