 Cannon blames Ignatieff for Canada's UN vote loss Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon says the lack of support from Michael Ignatieff for Canada's bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council helped scuttle it, an assertion the Liberal leader called "ridiculous."Commentsview comments in forum Page 1 2 You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Make no mistake, the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) did for our support of Israel and our condemnation of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The dictators of the OIC prefer bankrupt Portugal with it’s nasty colonial record to Canada.
Well, there you have it.
Canada being snubbed by these countries is down to Harper. Is it a bad thing that we tell these despots we don’t agree with them?
Far from diminishing our global role, this vote has clarified where we stand and who stands against us.
The dictators are used to us wielding ‘soft power’ and the fact that we are calling them out on their anti-Semitic rhetoric and their lack of democracy, human rights etc, doesn’t make them all warm and fuzzy like past governments made them feel.
It certainly is Harper’s fault and it can’t be placed at Iggy’s feet.
But is it a bad thing to tell these tossers what we think?
I don’t believe so.
It's pretty easy to find out who voted against us.
Make no mistake, the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) did for our support of Israel and our condemnation of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The dictators of the OIC prefer bankrupt Portugal with it’s nasty colonial record to Canada.
Well, there you have it.
Canada being snubbed by these countries is down to Harper. Is it a bad thing that we tell these despots we don’t agree with them?
Far from diminishing our global role, this vote has clarified where we stand and who stands against us.
The dictators are used to us wielding ‘soft power’ and the fact that we are calling them out on their anti-Semitic rhetoric and their lack of democracy, human rights etc, doesn’t make them all warm and fuzzy like past governments made them feel.
It certainly is Harper’s fault and it can’t be placed at Iggy’s feet.
But is it a bad thing to tell these tossers what we think?
I don’t believe so.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. The UN is so broken these days.
It's pretty easy to find out who voted against us.
Make no mistake, the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) did for our support of Israel and our condemnation of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The dictators of the OIC prefer bankrupt Portugal with it’s nasty colonial record to Canada.
Well, there you have it.
Canada being snubbed by these countries is down to Harper. Is it a bad thing that we tell these despots we don’t agree with them?
Far from diminishing our global role, this vote has clarified where we stand and who stands against us.
The dictators are used to us wielding ‘soft power’ and the fact that we are calling them out on their anti-Semitic rhetoric and their lack of democracy, human rights etc, doesn’t make them all warm and fuzzy like past governments made them feel.
It certainly is Harper’s fault and it can’t be placed at Iggy’s feet.
But is it a bad thing to tell these tossers what we think?
I don’t believe so.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. The UN is so broken these days.
It is sad. The UN had such a noble mission in the beginning, now it's pandering to the despots and only holding certain democracies accountable.
It is sad. The UN had such a noble mission in the beginning, now it's pandering to the despots and only holding certain democracies accountable.
Well, to be fair, when it was started, it was mostly dominated by the West, with a relative handful of 3rd world countries (mostly in South America) participating. After the Europeans gave up their colonies, the UN admitted anyone with a title, no matter how despicable they were.
It's one of the key reasons the USA doesn't give a shit about the UN anymore, as it can no longer expect a similar POV on many issues.
The wogs at the UN will still be demanding our Money Troops and Resources to help enforce their outdated, outmoded, corrupt ideals.
We should be congratulating ourselves since in the eyes of the UN we've just graduated to the same status as the Americans.
Gregory Nunn.
Just replace America with Canada and you have a correct new quote.
Like Brock said, there's 57 votes out there belonging to Arab and Muslim countries in the UN. A Canadian policy that favours Israel obviously won't appeal in any foreign Muslim state where 'death-to-Israel' and gutter-variety Jew-hatred is a major part of their domestic political cultures. Walking out on the first Durban Jew-hate festival way back when, which happened under Chretien I believe and was one of the very few things his govt ever did that I supported, was probably the exact point where Canada ended up on the enemies list for these countries anyway. Aside from leaving the UN altogether, which I would certainly support, the only thing left to do is just to put in our time there in the General Assembly. Moving upwards in such a horrible, corrupt, and disreputable organization really isn't such an honour to strive for anyway.
I don't know if this is an 'at fault' issue anyway. Harper has nothing at all to apologize for in forging a more pro-Israel foreign policy. And as lacklustre as Iggy has been so far I highly doubt that his lonely complaints back home caught the attention or swayed the vote of any other country out there.
Like Brock said, there's 57 votes out there belonging to Arab and Muslim countries in the UN. A Canadian policy that favours Israel obviously won't appeal in any foreign Muslim state where 'death-to-Israel' and gutter-variety Jew-hatred is a major part of their domestic political cultures. Walking out on the first Durban Jew-hate festival way back when, which happened under Chretien I believe and was one of the very few things his govt ever did that I supported, was probably the exact point where Canada ended up on the enemies list for these countries anyway. Aside from leaving the UN altogether, which I would certainly support, the only thing left to do is just to put in our time there in the General Assembly. Moving upwards in such a horrible, corrupt, and disreputable organization really isn't such an honour to strive for anyway.
I think only the hard-core partisans will see this as a 'diplomatic black-eye' for Canada and I agree with your post Thanos.
Canadians are starting to doubt the accepted wisdom of the 1990's and 2000's. That is that they are now starting to see the UN for the paper tiger it is.
It has been overtaken by the despots who can't believe their luck at getting an equal podium with large and wealthy democracies. The various committees have such leading lights in freedom as Zimbabwe, China, Iran and Libya in positions of influence.
The whole Durban thing has shown us that the Islamic bloc within the UN just can’t give up on hating the Jews first and foremost and the supposed ‘neutral’ UN inquiry into the Gaza ‘aid’ flotilla debacle was another exercise in declaring Israel as the Little Satan.
As we speak Ahmadinejad is stirring the shit up in Lebanon, much to the Islamic bloc’s delight.
The UN was past it’s sell-by date by the time the Rwandan genocide happened.
They fearlessly fiddled while Rwanda burned. The Blue Berets just sat there as millions were massacred and nothing has changed.
Canada’s non-election to the UN Security Council is a disappointment to Canadians and a real loss to the UN system. But the greatest disappointment of all has been the exploitation of the disappointment by partisan groups advancing narrow agendas.
The Sierra Club suggested that Canada lost because Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto accord on climate change. Anti-Israel voices inside the Canadian civil service have murmured to friendly journalists that Canada was punished for Prime Minister Harper’s staunch support for the Middle East democracy. Personally, I’m waiting for somebody to suggest that Canada lost because Maclean’s magazine’s coverage of corruption in Quebec offended La Francophonie.
These statements are self-interested and polemical — and also reveal a weak understanding of the workings of the United Nations.
The Security Council has 10 temporary members, each serving a two-year term. Theoretically, those 10 temporary members are elected by the General Assembly by secret ballot. In the first round of balloting on October 12, Canada received 114 votes, 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to win.
And yes, in that balloting, it’s very possible that the Islamic bloc at the UN voted for Portugal over Canada. But it’s not the voting that matters at the UN. It’s the nominations.
The temporary Security Council seats are assigned to regional blocs. Five seats become available January 1, 2011. One of those seats is assigned to the African bloc. One is assigned to the Asian and Arab bloc, one to the Latin American and Caribbean bloc, and two to the bloc to which Canada belongs: Western Europe and Others.
Each of those regional blocs caucuses separately to determine whom it will nominate to fill its assigned seat.
The Africans nominated one candidate, South Africa, and it was duly elected. The Asians nominated one candidate, India, which was likewise duly elected. The Latin American and Caribbean group nominated one candidate, Colombia, again duly elected.
Noticing a pattern?
But the Western European and others group nominated not the requisite two candidates, but instead three: Germany and Portugal, as well as Canada. By nominating three, the Western European and Others bloc forfeited its right of decision. That looks like an unwise act. Why did it happen?
The answer has nothing to do with Kyoto or Israel, and everything to do with the internal politics of the European Union. It’s the European Union countries that dominate the Western bloc. Increasingly, the EU countries have been negotiating these UN nominations among themselves first. They decide that they want Germany and Portugal — and then they muscle their way through the rest of the bloc onto the UN floor.
This phenomenon creates two serious structural problems.
• European Union bloc voting gives the EU unintended clout within the Security Council. Remember, Eastern Europe is also a bloc, and it gets one seat on the Security Council, currently held by Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnia-Herzegovina is not yet a EU member, but it would dearly like to be, and so would other members of the Eastern European group. The EU can pressure EU applicants into complying with EU wishes, even against a supposed EU ally like Canada.
• Bloc voting by the EU within the Western bloc seriously disadvantages the “others”: Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Israel is an affiliate member of the Western group, and also, by the way, one of two countries in the UN ineligible for Security Council membership. The other is Kiribati, but Kiribati’s exclusion is almost certainly only temporary: It only joined the UN in 1999, after all.)
One logical answer to the EU bloc voting problem is to transform France’s permanent seat on the Security Council into an EU seat. That would appropriately recognize the EU’s power and importance: Only permanent members of the Security Council have a veto, after all. Then the Western Europe and Others bloc could agree that one of the two Western bloc seats should always go to one of the “others” — including, yes, Israel, which should be accepted as a full member of the bloc, with full member rights.
Short of that elegant solution, a good stopgap would be for Canadians to quit blaming themselves when they are maltreated by others. Under the Stephen Harper government, Canada has compiled an outstanding foreign-policy record of support form human rights and democracy worldwide. That’s something to be proud of. This week’s rejection of Canada at the UN is genuinely something to be ashamed of — but in Brussels, not in Ottawa.
©David Frum
dfrum@frumforum.com
David Frum has some good point here.
Nice find Fishead. And very interesting points by Frum.
I am to please, crabby-paddy!
Nice find Fishead. And very interesting points by Frum.
I am to please, crabby-paddy!
I like it!