Why Canada lost its bid for a UN Security Council seat

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In a stunning international rebuke, Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority federal government lost its bid for a UN Security Council seat on Oct. 12. The vote in New York was the world’s response to a Canadian foreign policy designed to please the most reactionary, shortsighted sectors of the Conservative Party base, evangelical Christian Zionists, extreme right-wing Jews, Islamophobes, the military-industrial-academiccomplex, mining and oil executives, and old cold-warriors.

Canada was among a small number of countries that refused to recognize the human right to water, or to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Close to the companies making huge profits on the Tar Sands, the Conservatives repeatedly sabotaged international climate negotiations. They angered many in the British Commonwealth by blocking a resolution calling for a “binding commitment” on rich countries to reduce emissions. At a UN climate conference in Bangkok last year, many delegates from poorer countries quit a session in protest after a Canadian suggestion to scrap the Kyoto Protocol as the basis of negotiations.

The Conservatives’ extreme ‘Israel no matter what’ position definitely hurt any chance on Oct. 12. “It’s hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days,” explained Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who emigrated from Moldova when he was 20 but still feels fit to call for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The Conservatives publicly endorsed Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, voted against a host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian rights, and in February Ottawa delighted Israeli hawks by canceling $15 million in funding for the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The money was transferred to Palestinian security reform.

For the past three years Ottawa has been heavily invested in training a Palestinian security force designed to oversee Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and “to ensure that the PA [Palestinian Authority] maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News. According to deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Kent, Operation PROTEUS, Canada’s military training mission in the West Bank, is the country’s “second largest deployment after Afghanistan”, and it receives “most of the money” from a five-year $300 million Canadian aid program to the Palestinians.

While Canadian ‘aid’ strengthens the most compliant Palestinian political factions, the Conservatives reject any criticism of Israel’s onslaught against the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. Canada was the only country at the UN Human Rights Council to vote against a Janu... French strikes (continued from page 6: “Revolt in France”) tion in service provision showed the revolutionary potential of the Arab and African communities.

Such alliances against racism are even more needed given the attempt by Sarkozy in September to divert the labor movement with his racist propaganda against Roma residents—which the government followed by mass deportations. The spreading antiimmigrant sentiment in Europe, the growing Islamophobia, and the increase in vote totals of right-wing 8 Socialist Action novemBER 2010 ary 2008 resolution that called for “urgent international action to put an immediate end to Israel’s siege of Gaza.”

Later in 2008 Israel unleashed a 22-day military assault on Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead. In response, many governments condemned the bombing. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations. Israel didn’t need to worry since Ottawa was prepared to help out. The Canadian embassy now represents Israel’s diplomatic interests in Caracas.

While Brazil and Turkey tried to dissipate hostility towards Iran, Harper used his pulpit as host of the G8 to pave the way for a possible U.S.-Israeli attack. A Feb. 17 Toronto Star article was headlined: “Military action against Iran still on the table, Kent says.” The junior foreign minister explained that “it’s a matter of timing and it’s a matter of how long we can wait without taking more serious preemptive action.”

“Preemptive action” is a euphemism for a bombing campaign. Canadian naval vessels are already provocatively conducting maneuvers off Iran’s coast. By stating that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada,” Kent is trying to create the impression that Iran is planning to attack Israel. But it is Israel that possesses nuclear weapons and threatens to bomb Iran, not the other way around.

Ottawa considers Iran’s nuclear energy program a major threat, but Israel’s atomic bombs have not earned similar condemnation. The Harper government abstained on a number of near unanimous votes asking Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) controls. In September, the Bloomberg Business News cited Canada as one of three countries that opposed an IAEA probe of Israel’s nuclear facilities as part of an Arab-led effort to create a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East.

Ottawa even prioritized the military over aid in the face of the incredible suffering caused by Haiti’s earthquake. Two thousand Canadian troops were deployed. But several Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Teams were readied, though never sent. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon explained that the teams were not needed because “the government had opted to send Canadian Armed Forces instead.”

Overthrown in February 2004 by a joint U.S./France/ Canada destabilization campaign, Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, has been barred from participating in elections. The Conservatives supported Fanmi Lavalas’ exclusion, and congratulated Haiti’s puppet government for inaugurating “a period of stabilization” good for “investment and trade.” Ottawa backed up its words with deeds, adding tens of millions of dollars to a Haitian prison and police system that has been massively expanded and militarized since the 2004 coup.

Ottawa gave its tacit support to the Honduran miliparties in several European countries all show that the rulers of the continent will rely increasingly on racist and fascist policies and movements to split the working class.

As the French revolt was spreading in mid-October, the British government announced a package of cuts, including elimination of half a million public-sector jobs and raising the retirement age from 65 to 67.

Workers throughout Europe know, after months of business and government demands for austerity to reduce public debts and deficits, that the fight to save French pensions is only the precursor of fights to save health care, education, housing, and jobs throughAfter meeting only members of the opposition during a trip to Venezuela in January, Peter Kent told the media that “democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.”

One issue mentioned in a number of media reports about Canada’s loss at the UN concerns the Congo. At the G8 Summit in June the Conservatives pushed for a major addendum to the final communique criticizing the Congo for attempting to gain a greater share of its vast mineral wealth. Months earlier Ottawa began to obstruct international efforts to reschedule the country’s foreign debt, which was mostly accrued during more than three decades of Joseph Mobuto’s dictatorship and the subsequent civil war.

Canadian officials “have a problem with what’s happened with a Canadian company,” Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said, referring to his government’s move to revoke a mining concession that Vancouver-based First Quantum acquired under dubious circumstances during the 1998-2003 war. “The Canadian government wants to use the Paris Club [of debtor nations] in order to resolve a particular problem”, explained Mende. “This is unacceptable.”

The mining industry increasingly represents Canada abroad. Canadian miners operate more than 3000 projects outside Canada. Many of these mines have displaced communities, destroyed ecosystems, and resulted in violence. This doesn’t seem to bother the Harper government, which is close to the most retrograde sectors of the mining industry. Last year they rejected a proposal “agreed to by the Mining Association of Canada under pressure from civil society groups” to make diplomatic and financial support for resource companies operating overseas contingent upon socially responsible conduct.

Despite countless horror stories suggesting the contrary, the Conservatives claim that voluntary standards are the best way to improve Canadian mining companies’ social responsibility.

Finally, the federal Conservatives have knowingly supported torture in Afghanistan and embraced an increasingly violent counterinsurgency war. Apparently, Canadian Joint Task Force 2 commandos regularly take part in nighttime assassination raids, which are highly unpopular with the Afghan population.

Losing the Security Council seat will hopefully cost the Conservatives some votes and temper their more extreme international positions. But those working to radically transform Canadian foreign policy see the consequences of the loss as much greater. There has probably never been a bigger blow to the carefully crafted image of Canada as a popular international do-gooder, a mythology that blinds so many Canadians to their state’s real role in the world. n See socialistaction-canada.blogspot.com for a longer version of this article. Yves Engler is the author of “The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy” and “Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid”. He’ll be touring Canada in mid-November to speak on “Why Canada lost its bid for a Security Council seat”, including at a Toronto Socialist Action public forum on Nov. 12. He can be contacted at: [email protected].

out the continent. They know too that the revolt in France followed on the heels of massive strikes and huge demonstrations in Spain, Greece, Belgium, and elsewhere—and that the French revolt could inspire a renewal of these actions, with coordination on a continent-wide basis.

Perhaps such a revolt across Europe could even break through the bipartisan deficit-reduction scaremongering of U.S. politicians, aided and abetted by the Tea Party-promoting media! All of this makes support for French workers and youth—and, most of all, learning from their example—an immediate and concrete necessity for workers worldwide. n

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News and views from SA Canada T in which the United Food and Commercial Work- wo recent concessionary labour settlements—one ers bureaucracy agreed to let Loblaw Cos. Ltd. convert more of its outlets in Canada into superstores that will pay up to 30,000 grocery workers lower wages, and another deal in the U.S. where the United Auto Work-