Lester B Pearson's road to development

ABSTRACT

During the 1950s and 60s, Lester Pearson came to see international assistance as central to Canada's constructive international engagement. Yet how Canada's greatest diplomat became a key architect of, and advocate for, international assistance remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to chart the evolution of Pearson's thinking regarding international assistance, in a presentation organized chronologically around the major chapters of Pearson's career. It enhances the narrative of a storied political career, consolidates Pearson's thinking on a critical issue and provides historical insight relevant to contemporary official development assistance policy-making.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans les années 50 et 60, Lester Pearson a fait de l’aide internationale une composante centrale de l’engagement constructif du Canada au plan international. Pourtant les raisons pour lesquelles le plus grand diplomate canadien est devenu un architecte et un défenseur majeur de l’aide internationale demeurent relativement peu explorées. Cet article se donne pour objectif de retracer l’évolution de la pensée de Pearson concernant l’aide internationale, à travers une présentation organisée chronologiquement autour des périodes majeures de sa carrière. Il soutient le récit d’une carrière bien remplie, conforte la pensée de Pearson sur un sujet critique et offre un aperçu historique pertinent, relativement à la politique contemporaine officielle de l’aide au développement.

KEYWORDS:

• Canada
• foreign aid
• international assistance
• international development
• Lester Pearson
• Pearsonian diplomacy
• Pearsonian internationalism

Acknowledgements

We thank Kevin Brushett for his feedback on a draft of this paper, Hilary Pearson for her thoughts on her grand-father's commitment to international development and Andrew Cohen and John English for taking the time to discuss this work with us. We also thank Alexandra McEwen of Library and Archives Canada for her kind assistance with the archival research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Robert Greenhill is the Executive Chairman of Global Canada. Prior to this, he was Managing Director at the World Economic Forum and President of the Canadian International Development Agency.

Marina Sharpe is Senior Research Fellow at Global Canada. Prior to this, she was a Steinberg Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. She holds a DPhil in law from Oxford, where she studied as a Trudeau Scholar.

Notes

1. Pearson's international engagement has also been criticized. See, for example, Engler (2012).

2. While the term ‘moral’ may not fully capture the social justice dimension of Pearson's belief in international assistance, the term is employed here because Pearson used it. For example, he writes that there ‘is a moral obligation to assist’ (Pearson 1970, p. 32).

3. These figures, which are given in current dollars, are derived from stats.oecd.org.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.