July 27, 2006
Smog Alert: Editorial vapours from the Toronto Star
The progressive catechism on Canadian foreign policy, all in one place (and with the usual errors of fact):
...Harper and the Conservatives appear to be more interested in currying favour with U.S. President George Bush's Republican administration, which is deeply unpopular on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, than with carving out a truly meaningful and independent role for Canada on the international scene [such as bombing the Serbs over Kosovo, without UN Security Council authorization? - MC].Indeed, Canada's once-distinct voice is becoming harder to distinguish from that of the United States...
...increased Canada-U.S. co-operation in Afghanistan [along with NATO; I wonder why the Star did not cover this - MC], the Mideast conflict and other issues are seen in many parts of the world as eroding Ottawa's role as an honest broker in relations between the White House and countries at odds with U.S. policies...
There is mounting unease that Canada has embraced Washington's counter-insurgency agenda and has abandoned diplomacy, peacekeeping and rebuilding, once the cornerstones of Canada's foreign policy...
The Star believes there is good reason to be concerned that Canada's traditional support for the United Nations, multilateralism, peacekeeping and international law and treaties will wither under this government. And we are concerned about whether Canada's foreign aid will be meaningfully increased and spent on the very poorest, and whether Canada will accept its responsibility to protect civilians swept up in political chaos and violence in places such as Haiti, the Middle East or Darfur, Sudan [or Congo or darfur or Kashmir or Chechnya; why be so selective? - MC]...
...In an increasingly divided world, Canada's wealth, global connections through our diverse population and vast energy resources should empower us to exert more influence, not less.
For the world needs both a superpower and it needs a peacekeeper...
If only the Star could provide some serious examples of what our "truly meaningful and independent role for Canada" has actually achieved; this is all they can cite from the past twenty years:
Former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney led the push for sanctions on South Africa, which helped bring about the end of apartheid. And former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy championed the International Criminal Tribunal to probe war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the fight against land mines.
The dimwits at the Star can't even get all the above right. The Rwanda and Yugoslavian tribunals were established in 1994 and 1993 respectively. "Softy" Lloyd did not become foreign affairs minister until 1996. He did however "champion" the International Criminal Court, which came into existence in 2002.
We are not impressed. Just a lot of hot air, utterly without any grounding in reality and full only of self-satisfied self-indulgence
Mark C.
Update: A Globe editorial, July 28, gets it right: "The honest broker that never was" (full text not officially online).
...The awkward truth is that Canada has done little to advance Middle East peace. Our last big contribution occurred when Lester Pearson helped negotiate an end to the Suez Crisis in 1956, half a century ago. Our only significant role in the Oslo peace process that began in the 1990s was to head a committee on the fate of refugees, an issue that has yet to be solved. No recent Canadian prime minister has been even a bit player in settling the region's quarrels. When a crisis erupts, as it has this month, no one in the Middle East asks: What does Canada think?Posted by markc at July 27, 2006 02:44 PMThe reputation that Mr. Harper is supposed to be squandering exists mainly in the minds of Canadians like Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Graham. We are not abandoning our role as honest broker in the Middle East because we never were one...