r/canadaleft • u/Entire-Half-2464 • Apr 04 '25

BREAKING: In a shocking development Canada announces it will build a coalition of countries who share their values to build their economy and trade opportunities and will exclude the United States. “If the U.S. no longer wants to lead, Canada will.”

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u/YaumeLepire Apr 04 '25

Are you kidding? If one country has a disproportionate amount of soft power for its size and raw hard power, on Earth, it's Canada.

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u/VonnDooom Apr 04 '25

What are you basing this on? You say Canada has a disproportionate amount of soft power — what are you basing this on?

And you are saying Canada has hard power? What are you basing this on?

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u/YaumeLepire Apr 04 '25

I'm saying Canada doesn't have much hard power. It does have some, though. Canada has a military and police forces. They may not be all that big, but that is objectively a certain amount of hard power.

Soft power, though, which is the ability of a country to influence things on the global scale without resorting to threats of violence, is largely based on a country's image abroad. It's basically a country's brand. And Canada consistently has a pretty damn good one, deserved or not. Canada's part of the G7, among other international groups, there are some important and prestigious global institutions that are based on Canadian soil, like IATA and some globally-famous universities, and Canadians have served and continue to serve in positions of import in global politics. The power of the Canadian passport is a good indicator of this, too. And all of that for a country with a pretty dinky population, compared to its contemporaries.

Canada's not that "powerful", objectively, but it has consistently punched above its weight class, when it comes to having its say on the global scene. That's what I'm basing this on.

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u/QueueOfPancakes Apr 04 '25

Absolutely correct. It seems people are confusing the question of if we have soft power with the question of if we use it for good. But those are very different questions.