World passes judgment on Harper’s foreign policy

Haroon Siddiqui, The Toronto Star:

Canada’s failure to get elected to the Security Council has been described as “a shocking development,” “a disaster,” “a diplomatic fiasco,” “a colossal failure” and “a dark day for Canada” that brought us “humiliation” and “shame on the world stage.”

Those are apt descriptions of this development — the first time in the 64-year history of the United Nations that Canada has failed to win a council seat, unlike in our six earlier bids. Our next bid cannot be for another 10 years.

The Harperites are reacting with their usual dishonest double-talk.

It’s no big deal not to have won a seat in a dysfunctional organization, they say. If so, why did we run?

It is a big deal but the loss is all Michael Ignatieff’s fault, having badmouthed our bid. If so, how come nobody outside of Canada has ever heard of him?

Or, it is the fault of the Europeans. They must have voted as a bloc. What else can explain the win by Portugal, not even a member of the G20, let alone the G8, and an economic basket case to boot? But Europe has less than 30 votes, whereas Arab and Muslim nations have 57 and Africa 51 votes, the two blocs with good reasons to oppose us.

“I don’t think this was a repudiation of Canada’s foreign policy,” said Lawrence Cannon (in New York with Peter Kent, obviously expecting to win). But if Stephen Harper’s foreign policy played no role in the defeat, why is his office arguing, “We did not barter our principled foreign policy?”

Dmitri Soudas, communications director for Harper, added: “Canadians have values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and those values were not bartered.” Canadians do have those values but it is Harper’s violation of them that cost us the council seat.

It’s not just his pro-Israeli stance that made Canada a pariah at the UN. He:

• Sabotaged the UN climate accord.

• Decried the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

• Downgraded UN peacekeeping — to 160 Canadian soldiers out of 105,500 worldwide, placing Canada 57th, behind Yemen and Uganda. (Tuesday, the day we lost the vote, was the anniversary of Lester B. Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize for inventing peacekeeping.)

• Diminished our role at the UN and its agencies.

• Diverted Canadian funds from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to the Palestinian Authority, to boost Mahmoud Abbas against rival Hamas.

• Thwarted a probe into the alleged torture of Afghan detainees.

• Left Omar Khadr to rot in Guantanamo Bay, while defending the policy of indefinite detention as well as the American military’s kangaroo courts.

In many of the above policies, Harper copied George W. Bush. Whereas America has shaken them off, the Prime Minister is still pursuing them.

As for being pro-Israeli, that’s no sin. Most of us are, but not blindly.

Harper called Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon “a measured response”; justified Israel’s war on Gaza and the deadly Israeli raid on the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza; barred George Galloway from entering Canada, an action overturned by the Federal Court, with Justice Richard Mosley repudiating Ottawa’s trumped up reasons as well as its dishonesty; presided over an upheaval at Rights and Democracy, the Montreal-based human rights agency, principally because it had given two small grants to one Israeli and two Palestinian groups to probe human rights violations; and slashed funding from the Canadian Arab Federation, Kairos and others deemed to be anti-Israeli.

Harper’s foreign policy is a far cry from Canada’s historic commitment to human rights, including pioneering the doctrine of responsibility to protect civilians; the treaty banning landmines; the curbs on blood diamonds; and the International Criminal Court.

Long before the world passed judgment on us this week, and well before Ignatieff expressed reservations about our Security Council bid, Robert Fowler, Canada’s former top diplomat, said last year:

“I’m not sure that Canada deserves to win this election, for we no longer represent the qualities which we Canadians have long insisted that candidates for the council should bring to such responsibilities . . . The world does not need more of the kind of Canada they’ve been getting.”