Canada’s corruption at home and abroad: An introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

Although Canada is widely regarded as among the least corrupt countries of the world, and so evaluated by the leading indexes, corruption still exists in today’s Canada. This introduction to a special issue on the nature of corruption in Canada recalls corrupt eras in the nation’s not-so-distant past and in the years of this decade. Although space prohibited articles on every aspect of Canada’s lingering corruption, the special issue managed to contain new discussions of corruption among the First Nations, corruption in the armed forces, corruption in the delivery of foreign assistance, corruption overseas by Canadian corporations, and corruption in the defense industry. A final article indicates the kinds of remedies available to reduce future outbreaks of corruption in Canada.

RÉSUMÉ

Bien que le Canada soit largement considéré comme figurant parmi les pays les moins corrompus du monde, les indices principaux en témoignant, la corruption existe encore dans le Canada d’aujourd’hui. Cette introduction d’une édition spéciale sur la nature de la corruption au Canada revient sur les époques de la corruption dans un passé pas si éloigné du pays et dans cette décennie. Bien que notre espace éditorial n’ait pas permis la publication d’articles couvrant tous les aspects de la corruption persistante au Canada, ce numéro spécial présente de nouveaux débats sur la corruption parmi les Premières Nations, dans les Forces armées, dans la fourniture de l’aide internationale, dans les entreprises canadiennes ayant une activité à l’étranger et dans l’industrie de la défense. Un dernier article présente les types de remèdes disponibles pour limiter la possibilité d’une recrudescence de la corruption au Canada.

KEYWORDS:

• bribery
• corruption
• graft
• Trudeau
• Harper

Notes on contributor

Professor Robert I. Rotberg is the Founding Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, President Emeritus of the World Peace Foundation, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Carleton University) and Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the International Relations Institute of the University of Sao Paulo. He is the author of The corruption cure: How leaders and citizens can combat corruption (Princeton, PUP, 2017); Africa emerges (Cambridge, Polity, 2013), Transformational political leadership (Chicago, CUP, 2012), and other books and articles.

Notes

1 For more on these various indexes, and how they are composed, see Rotberg and Bhushan (2015).