John Wendell Holmes: A name that helped shape Canada’s international role
Written by Matt O'Connor
Although not a well known today, John Wendell Holmes was at one time a household name in Canada. He worked for the Department of External Affairs during the Second World War, was former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson’s senior public servant during the Suez Crisis, Canada’s representative in the Soviet Union when the Cold War started, and Canada’s leading negotiator in the Vietnam war. He went on to become president of the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, then a professor at the University of Toronto.
Holmes is responsible for something that we as young Canadians take great pride in today. “He remains the most staunch proponent of Canada as a middle power.” Says Duane Bratt, Chair of Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. He goes on to say, “that liberal international view of Canada as a helpful fixer: that’s John Holmes.”
Adam Chapnick, Deputy Director of Education at the Canadian Forces College and Associate Professor of Defense Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, has written the very first autobiography of Holmes titled; Canada’s Voice: the Public Life of John Wendell Holmes.
“Holmes was important for a few reasons, for a lot of years he really was the most important interpreter of Canada’s foreign policy.” Chapnick told a handful of students and academics at Mount Royal University, “He was a regular talking head on the CBC; he had articles in just about every newspaper.”
While Holmes played an important part in developing Canada’s role as a middle power, he left office under very unfortunate circumstances. Bratt says,“They [the R.C.M.P] believed that anyone who was a homosexual in that time [1960’s] was obviously a Soviet spy.” He adds, “So he was drummed out in the middle of the night by External Affairs.”
“The level and depth of his role in shaping Canadian identity in foreign affairs is profound,” says Enrico Escalante, a 24-year old Customs and Global Trade Compliance Analyst with Encana.
He adds, “Considering that many people in the room don’t know much about him, if anything at all.”
So why does no one talk about Holmes today? Perhaps his ideas of what Canada should be are reflected in how he lived his life.
Chapnick sums him up, “Holmes was a voice, but his point wasn’t that he wanted to be on the front page, his point was that there were moderate reasonable people out there, who should have been heard on every issue.”
He goes on to say, ”By being more discreet, he believed, you could have more influence.”
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