If true, this would overturn more than six decades of Canadian defense policy since the Ogdensburg agreement in 1940, which quite explicitly did ask somebody else to defend us: the Americans. But in fact there isn't any sense in which the Prime Minister's statement is true. If a foreign power were to attempt an invasion of Canada, there isn't a thing we could do on our own to stop them -- not with an army with fewer men under arms than the New York City police force.

If, less fancifully, we were to be the target of a missile attack, there is similarly nothing we could do about it -- nothing, that is, but sign on to the American missile defence plan. To his credit, the Prime Minister is about to do just that, the minute he has got through an election in which he will disavow any such intention. But to say that we will consent to be defended by the Americans, at their expense, is hardly to say that we will defend ourselves.

Or was he simply referring to our resolve to prevent terrorists from operating on our soil? Admittedly, this represents something of a shift in position, to the extent that it is now the government's policy to do so. But that is not the same as saying that we have shown our ability to do so. As noted in an unfortunately timed report from the U.S. State Department, issued on the very day of the Prime Minister's arrival in Washington, Canada has yet to initiate a single prosecution under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act. Or should I even mention the recent Auditor-General's report on the gaping holes in our security net?

No, far from a ringing declaration of national self-reliance, it appears our foreign policy will remain steeped in the same tawdry, demeaning illusion: that, while the Americans are our allies, we are not necessarily theirs; that we are entitled, uniquely in world history, to claim neutrality on someone else's dime.

That, at any rate, is what one would gather from another of the Prime Minister's statements during his time in Washington, this one in a speech to a think tank, where he was reported to have defended Canadian policy in Iraq. In that particular conflict, he said, "we did not join the coalition forces. I believe this was the right decision for Canada, and Canadians supported it."

That's it. That's the defence, in its entirety. To be fair, that's about as much as you get from any of the other critics of the war, heavily represented among the national press, for whom it is sufficient to note that the Canadian government's position has been "vindicated" in light of subsequent events. How? Why?

Do they mean that the war itself should never have happened? Then they cannot escape the implication: that the people of Iraq would be better off, and the security of the world better preserved, with Saddam Hussein still in power. Because, all together now, "no weapons of mass destruction have been found." You can see the logic: since (it seems) he had not yet obtained any WMD, he never would -- not even, say, from the North Koreans, who have been practically advertising their willingness to sell to all takers. What would have prevented him? Oh, I know: UN sanctions. Talk about discredited positions.

Or perhaps they mean only that Canada was right to refuse to participate, whatever the war's merits. If so, it's even harder to see what they mean. In a cause that was otherwise just, we should have abstained, because ... because ... it seems to have been harder going than was first anticipated? Yes, I think that is probably exactly what they mean.

The odd thing about the Prime Minister's statement is that it is contradicted by just about everything else in his speech. At one point he declaims, "we will be most secure when citizens in all countries are able to participate fully in national life." Such as, for example, in the Iraqi democracy the toppling of Saddam has made possible, for the first time in any Arab state.

At another point, he asks what should be done "if a nation violates all accepted standards of responsible behaviour." Do we not, he asks, "have a responsibility to protect ... a country's people from their own government?" Rejecting the argument "that state sovereignty confers absolute immunity," he calls for an "open discussion about the need for intervention in situations that offend the most basic precepts of our common humanity." Sounds like Iraq in a nutshell.

And then there's his proposal, recycled from an earlier speech, for reform of multilateral institutions, including a council of major powers that would more or less replace the United Nations as the locus of international legitimacy. What? You mean Canadian policy would not be dictated by the Security Council, which is to say by France? Then what is left of our "position" on the war, which leaned heavily on the Council's failure to adopt an 18th resolution authorizing force?

Anyway, which position? As I recall, the government had about 16 different positions, substituting a new one with each passing week. Indeed, as reported by the National Post's Chris Wattie last November, it was preparing to send ground troops until the very last minute -- U.S. Central Command was privately offered a battle group of 800 soldiers -- before suddenly diverting them to Afghanistan. I am told by a well-connected Liberal that the decision was finally clinched by Jean Chretien's pique at the dismissive treatment accorded our proposal at the UN: the one that would have given Saddam two weeks' notice before launching an invasion.