Not all joint statements need to include Canada

Some Canadians, mainly those of the Conservative persuasion, are trying their best to paint a joint statement by the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Italy on the Israel-Hamas conflict as a major slight to Canada, and proof positive of Canada's continued slide into irrelevance. Pierre Poilievre, of course, is blaming it specifically on Justin Trudeau, but then Poilievre blames everything on Trudeau, no matter how improbable, and it is kind of hard to take anything he says seriously any more. 

So, yes, these five countries make up most of the G7 group of influential industrialized nations, which also includes Japan and, for whatever reason, Canada. In terms of GDP, Canada is (just) in the top ten in the world, as are the other members of the G7, although actually below the likes of China, India and Brazil (which are not in the G7, probably because they have chosen to group together under the BRICS label). 

But the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are also members of the more informal, lesser-known grouping known as The Quint, which just happens to contain most members of the G7, minus Japan and Canada. The US, Britain and France are all "nuclear weapon states", while Germany and Italy are part of the nuclear weapons sharing program within NATO. 

Whatever the impetus for the establishment of the Quint grouping, there is nothing nefarious or slighting about the fact that Canada is not a member of it. The group is at liberty to make whatever joint statements it likes without having to involve Canada (or Japan). 

There is another informal group called The Quad (technically, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), which consists of the United States, India, Japan and Australia. Canada is not a member of that either (but then, neither is France, Germany, etc). 

Then, there is the Aukus defence pact (Australia, UK and USA), and there were those who tried to make big deal of Canada's absence from that group too, although it turns out that the Aukus group was established very specifically to enable Australia to build nuclear-propelled submarines, something that Canada is not in the market for. It is not a club or a defence pact or anything of that sort.

There is also the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and, yes, Canada IS a member of that. Do you think that France and Germany lose sleep over their exclusion from it? Probably not.

So, there is a plethora of these informal international groupings. Some are more important than than others. Some are exclusive, some are mutually exclusive, some overlap like mad Venn diagrams. Canada does not have to be part of all of them, nor is it ever likely to be, there is nothing to say that Canada has to be a member of every tin-pot international grouping that arises. Neither is it the case that we have to be involved in every little thing that the US and the UK gets involved in.

And just because a statement is made without Canada's signature on it does not mean that the country has suddenly become totally irrelevant or an international laughing stock (we have other ways of ensuring that...) Although it sometimes might seem like it, Mr. Trudeau does not direct every little thing that happens in the country. He has a cabinet and a caucus and a whole civil service behind him.

And, if it really needs to be explained to a certain Mr. Poilievre, whatever Canada does or doesn't do does not necessarily have to be laid at the doorstep of the current Prime Minister. After all, Canada was not a member of The Quint under Conservative Prime Minister Harper either. But then, petty point-scoring and disingenuous misinformation is Poilievre's stock-in-trade, isn't it?