October 4, 2010
Canada is lobbying hard to win a seat on the UN Security Council for a two year 2011-2012 term. The competition for this non-permanent seat on the Council comes from two member countries of the European Union, namely Germany and Portugal, and Germany is all but confirmed. It has been a decade since Canada was last a member of the Council.
With its spotty record of late in international affairs, should Canada be taken seriously as a helpful, responsible candidate, ready and able to contribute to discussions on global issues and contribute to the search for solutions and consensus?
It is actually very difficult to discern any Canadian agenda in seeking a seat on the Security Council. Unlike the G8 Summit in Muskoka – there because Tony Clement’s riding needed infrastructure – and the G20 conference, staged to demonstrate how the Toronto Police Force’s advanced crowd control techniques, membership on the Security Council requires a two-year plan. This could be a challenge for the Harper government, which is more accustomed to playing it week-to-week, month-to-month. What, for example, might the government’s position be on a possible international food price crisis? Where will Canada stand on UN peacekeeping efforts – to which we contribute so little? What is our position on the lack of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals?
And how does our track record look? The Security Council is the preeminent venue for discussions on issues of global consequence. Like climate change. Like peace, security and development in poor countries. Like Middle East peace and stability. International economic relationships and security. High seas piracy. Migration and security. In recent years Canada has not shown much, if any interest in working with others to find solutions to shared problems. Cutbacks in development cooperation, little interest in UN peacekeeping, a denial of climate change, resurrecting Cold War era scares over foreign (Russian) bomber overflights, bombastic attitudes on Arctic sovereignty – these are hallmarks of the Conservative government’s approach. Not much evidence of an ability to work with others, or to lead by example. By and large, there isn’t much interest in international affairs in general, except to revert to well-known law-and-order mantras when something does pop up, like a boatload of Tamil migrants. It does not seem to have registered with the Prime Minister’s Office that the “build more prisons so we can lock up more bad guys for longer” approach doesn’t work outside our borders.
So what do we offer? A disturbing prospect – Canada as a member of a key international forum, but a member without a plan, a strategy or objectives. It’s as though the government wants to be able to add something to its corporate CV – Member of the Security Council – but is not willing to do the work and accept the responsibilities that go with the job. So the prospect if we are elected, is Canadian diplomats occupying a seat and having little if anything to say. Even that might be OK if we could be sure that Canada wouldn’t pipe up on the hugely important Israel-Palestine peace talks with an objection based on narrow domestic political considerations. That’s just one unpleasant but entirely possible scenario coming from a government that has demonstrated that it is unprepared to lead on the international stage.