The Ugly Canadian
http://murraydobbin.ca/2009/12/17/the-ugly-canadian/
by murraydobbin
Posted on December 17, 2009
It was really just a matter of time. The deep well of affection and respect
around the world that Canada has drawn on for decades has been slowly
poisoned by the Harper government (and the Liberals immediately before it)
and the world is now taking serious notice. In the words of the famous Yes
Men (who pulled off the brilliant hoax in Copenhagen): "We've always kind
of grown up looking up to Canada. We've always thought that Canadians were
such nice people and had much better policies than we did - national health
care and all that. And this is just a real disappointment for us, energy
policy and learning that Canadians' carbon footprint per capita is higher
than us." The Copenhagen conference may just be the final burden that
brings us to critical mass, that qualitative leap where Canada is suddenly
seen as a mean-spirited, disingenuous, and reactionary force in the family
of nations.
Here are some of the most important image-busters in Canada's foreign
policy bag of nasty tricks.
Climate change. This is obviously the biggie. More than any other issue, it
is truly global and the Harper government's staggering arrogance makes
Canada a rogue nation. No other country is so contemptuous of the interests
of the planet. Not only does Stephen Harper think he is smarter than anyone
in Canada, he thinks he is smarter than anyone, period. Harper's message:
the rest of you are a pack of idiots. As a result, even the U.S. Energy
Secretary Steven Chu refused to agree to a photo-op with Environment
Minister Jim Prentice.
Asbestos. It is the deadliest workplace substance in history, killing more
workers in Canada than any other cause. And the deaths are increasing every
year. Stephen Harper has explicitly declared himself the champion of Quebec
asbestos and has dedicated himself to ensuring that asbestos is not
declared a dangerous substance under the Rotterdam Convention. Thousands of
workers in developing countries will die as a result. Canada challenged
France's ban on asbestos through the WTO and lost, making the French
environmental law one of the few to survive such a challenge and
reinforcing the science declaring asbestos a class one carcinogen.
Terminator seeds. Terminator technology refers to seed genetically modified
to produce sterile seeds that cannot be planted, forcing peasants around
the world to purchase seeds every season. Globally, farmers would lose
hundreds of millions of dollars in income. At the last meeting of the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil, Canada joined
Australia and New Zealand in trying to undermine the protocol, calling for
a "case by case risk assessment" of terminator seeds, with the intention of
allowing the technology to be approved through existing legislation for
genetically modified crops. Canada and its partners failed in their efforts
but not for lack of trying. Not a single company in Canada has expressed an
interest in pursuing this technology - so Mr. Harper casually trashed
Canada's reputation for purely ideological reasons.
GMO food. Canada is on the front line of forcing people around the world to
eat genetically modified food. It is using a big stick against Europeans. A
November 2006 World Trade Organization ruling found in favour of a
complaint brought by the U.S., Canada and Argentina that the EU had
violated WTO rules through "undue delays" in approving genetically modified
organisms. This in spite of the fact that Europeans' rejection of such
foods has been growing over the 15 years that polls have been conducted.
Even previously supportive leaders like President Sarkozy of France and the
EU's environment commissioner have changed their mind citing new science.
The Afghan occupation and renewed militarism. While Canada is not alone in
the endless and brutal occupation of Afghanistan, it is seen around the
world as one of the most aggressive supporters of U.S. policy in that
country and the region. Canada's long reputation as an "honest broker" in
global geo-politics, while never entirely accurate, has been severely
damaged. We are now seen not as a peacekeeper or peacemaker but as a killer
of "scumbags" and a warrior state fighting the absurd American "war on
terror." While there are more peacekeepers active in the world than ever
before, we have a government that ridicules the very thing that gave Canada
its humanitarian reputation.
Israel. Related to the Afghan conflict, but also distinct from it, is
Canada's policy of providing Israel with a complete carte blanche to do
literally anything it wants, including committing war crimes against the
people of Gaza. When Hamas was elected as the government of Gaza, Canada
was the first to indicate it would not recognize it - a travesty of our
alleged support for democracy. The invasion of Lebanon, over the kidnapping
of two Israeli soldiers, witnessed the deliberate and massive destruction
of infrastructure and attacks on civilian targets - a strategy intended to
turn Lebanese civilians against Hezbollah. The ferocious bombing assault
against a defenceless nation was described by Prime Minister Harper as a
"measured response."
The betrayal of Africa. After decades of Canadian government commitment to
African aid, the Harper government, virtually overnight and without even a
pretense of an explanation, simply wrote Africa out of the picture. Dropped
>from the list of recipient countries were eight African nations, including
Rwanda, still recovering from genocide. While conventional wisdom suggests
that African aid has been ineffective, it was generally not true of
Canadian programs, which really worked at helping lift people out of
disease and poverty.
The Harper government has reconfigured aid to match Canada's "interests" -
a quintessentially American approach - and has shifted aid to Latin America
(Peru and Columbia, already the recipient of billions in aid from the U.S.)
and the Caribbean.
Latin America. Just as many of the countries of Latin America are
struggling successfully to overcome the dark period of neo-liberalism and
IMF/World Bank restrictions on their national policies, Stephen Harper has
expressed a "renewed" interest in the region. The problem is that renewed
interest is as a junior partner in American "manifest destiny."
With the U.S. busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Canada is offering a helping
hand in re-establishing American and corporate dominance in the region.
Hostile to Cuba and Venezuela, and friendly to the right-wing regime in
Columbia, the Canadian government has also gone along with the U.S. as the
only other member of the OAS to recognize the fraudulently elected
government of Honduras despite that country's military coup, widespread
human rights violations, media closures and its refusal to implement an
agreement to reinstate (even briefly) the legitimate government of Manuel
Zelaya. Thus Canada eagerly aligns itself against Latin American
nationalism, the most powerful force on the continent, as its first real
engagement in the region.
China and human rights. As a sop to his large anti-abortion constituency,
Harper not only ignored China for the first four years of his government
but openly snubbed the fastest growing world power. To suggest that this
was because Harper objected to China's human rights record is laughable. If
so, it was the most ineffective intervention ever made. While unstated,
Harper was in reality giving a sign to his anti-abortion supporters that he
would not cozy up to a country that performs more abortions than the rest
of the world combined. His phony concern about human rights in China just
underlines his embarrassing absence on the issue literally everywhere else:
Gaza, Lebanon, Burma, Honduras, Afghan detainees, the Sudan, etc.
There is hardly a region in the world where Canada has not exchanged its
previous moderate, middle power role for one of aggressive,
"interests-based" policies, joined at the hip with the terminally unpopular
U.S. One way or the other the Harper regime, in just four short years, has
damaged Canada's relationships with the EU, the Muslim world, the Middle
East, Africa, Latin America and China.
Canada's ugly new face
It is difficult to assess the international impact of each of these
examples. Canada rarely gets covered in the news and most people in Europe
or other countries, developed and developing, may know little about these
issues. But eventually foreign policy reaches down to ordinary people
around the world - those moved by Israel's occupation of the West Bank,
those who want safe food for their kids, those aware of the appalling
working conditions of workers in developing nations like India, the
millions who are opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
hundreds of millions watching the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
We have been able for a long time to rest on our laurels because these
issues don't often overlap for most people. But eventually it starts to
break through the long-standing positive image of Canada. And it breaks
through with precisely the people who play a major role in determining the
political culture and government policies of their respective countries.
These are the people who are the most engaged in their democracies, who
influence their governments, who engage with civil society organizations
and the media.
In short, the people who know are those who are in positions to spread the
word about a new global phenomenon: the ugly Canadian.
by murraydobbin
Posted on December 17, 2009
It was really just a matter of time. The deep well of affection and respect
around the world that Canada has drawn on for decades has been slowly
poisoned by the Harper government (and the Liberals immediately before it)
and the world is now taking serious notice. In the words of the famous Yes
Men (who pulled off the brilliant hoax in Copenhagen): "We've always kind
of grown up looking up to Canada. We've always thought that Canadians were
such nice people and had much better policies than we did - national health
care and all that. And this is just a real disappointment for us, energy
policy and learning that Canadians' carbon footprint per capita is higher
than us." The Copenhagen conference may just be the final burden that
brings us to critical mass, that qualitative leap where Canada is suddenly
seen as a mean-spirited, disingenuous, and reactionary force in the family
of nations.
Here are some of the most important image-busters in Canada's foreign
policy bag of nasty tricks.
Climate change. This is obviously the biggie. More than any other issue, it
is truly global and the Harper government's staggering arrogance makes
Canada a rogue nation. No other country is so contemptuous of the interests
of the planet. Not only does Stephen Harper think he is smarter than anyone
in Canada, he thinks he is smarter than anyone, period. Harper's message:
the rest of you are a pack of idiots. As a result, even the U.S. Energy
Secretary Steven Chu refused to agree to a photo-op with Environment
Minister Jim Prentice.
Asbestos. It is the deadliest workplace substance in history, killing more
workers in Canada than any other cause. And the deaths are increasing every
year. Stephen Harper has explicitly declared himself the champion of Quebec
asbestos and has dedicated himself to ensuring that asbestos is not
declared a dangerous substance under the Rotterdam Convention. Thousands of
workers in developing countries will die as a result. Canada challenged
France's ban on asbestos through the WTO and lost, making the French
environmental law one of the few to survive such a challenge and
reinforcing the science declaring asbestos a class one carcinogen.
Terminator seeds. Terminator technology refers to seed genetically modified
to produce sterile seeds that cannot be planted, forcing peasants around
the world to purchase seeds every season. Globally, farmers would lose
hundreds of millions of dollars in income. At the last meeting of the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil, Canada joined
Australia and New Zealand in trying to undermine the protocol, calling for
a "case by case risk assessment" of terminator seeds, with the intention of
allowing the technology to be approved through existing legislation for
genetically modified crops. Canada and its partners failed in their efforts
but not for lack of trying. Not a single company in Canada has expressed an
interest in pursuing this technology - so Mr. Harper casually trashed
Canada's reputation for purely ideological reasons.
GMO food. Canada is on the front line of forcing people around the world to
eat genetically modified food. It is using a big stick against Europeans. A
November 2006 World Trade Organization ruling found in favour of a
complaint brought by the U.S., Canada and Argentina that the EU had
violated WTO rules through "undue delays" in approving genetically modified
organisms. This in spite of the fact that Europeans' rejection of such
foods has been growing over the 15 years that polls have been conducted.
Even previously supportive leaders like President Sarkozy of France and the
EU's environment commissioner have changed their mind citing new science.
The Afghan occupation and renewed militarism. While Canada is not alone in
the endless and brutal occupation of Afghanistan, it is seen around the
world as one of the most aggressive supporters of U.S. policy in that
country and the region. Canada's long reputation as an "honest broker" in
global geo-politics, while never entirely accurate, has been severely
damaged. We are now seen not as a peacekeeper or peacemaker but as a killer
of "scumbags" and a warrior state fighting the absurd American "war on
terror." While there are more peacekeepers active in the world than ever
before, we have a government that ridicules the very thing that gave Canada
its humanitarian reputation.
Israel. Related to the Afghan conflict, but also distinct from it, is
Canada's policy of providing Israel with a complete carte blanche to do
literally anything it wants, including committing war crimes against the
people of Gaza. When Hamas was elected as the government of Gaza, Canada
was the first to indicate it would not recognize it - a travesty of our
alleged support for democracy. The invasion of Lebanon, over the kidnapping
of two Israeli soldiers, witnessed the deliberate and massive destruction
of infrastructure and attacks on civilian targets - a strategy intended to
turn Lebanese civilians against Hezbollah. The ferocious bombing assault
against a defenceless nation was described by Prime Minister Harper as a
"measured response."
The betrayal of Africa. After decades of Canadian government commitment to
African aid, the Harper government, virtually overnight and without even a
pretense of an explanation, simply wrote Africa out of the picture. Dropped
>from the list of recipient countries were eight African nations, including
Rwanda, still recovering from genocide. While conventional wisdom suggests
that African aid has been ineffective, it was generally not true of
Canadian programs, which really worked at helping lift people out of
disease and poverty.
The Harper government has reconfigured aid to match Canada's "interests" -
a quintessentially American approach - and has shifted aid to Latin America
(Peru and Columbia, already the recipient of billions in aid from the U.S.)
and the Caribbean.
Latin America. Just as many of the countries of Latin America are
struggling successfully to overcome the dark period of neo-liberalism and
IMF/World Bank restrictions on their national policies, Stephen Harper has
expressed a "renewed" interest in the region. The problem is that renewed
interest is as a junior partner in American "manifest destiny."
With the U.S. busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Canada is offering a helping
hand in re-establishing American and corporate dominance in the region.
Hostile to Cuba and Venezuela, and friendly to the right-wing regime in
Columbia, the Canadian government has also gone along with the U.S. as the
only other member of the OAS to recognize the fraudulently elected
government of Honduras despite that country's military coup, widespread
human rights violations, media closures and its refusal to implement an
agreement to reinstate (even briefly) the legitimate government of Manuel
Zelaya. Thus Canada eagerly aligns itself against Latin American
nationalism, the most powerful force on the continent, as its first real
engagement in the region.
China and human rights. As a sop to his large anti-abortion constituency,
Harper not only ignored China for the first four years of his government
but openly snubbed the fastest growing world power. To suggest that this
was because Harper objected to China's human rights record is laughable. If
so, it was the most ineffective intervention ever made. While unstated,
Harper was in reality giving a sign to his anti-abortion supporters that he
would not cozy up to a country that performs more abortions than the rest
of the world combined. His phony concern about human rights in China just
underlines his embarrassing absence on the issue literally everywhere else:
Gaza, Lebanon, Burma, Honduras, Afghan detainees, the Sudan, etc.
There is hardly a region in the world where Canada has not exchanged its
previous moderate, middle power role for one of aggressive,
"interests-based" policies, joined at the hip with the terminally unpopular
U.S. One way or the other the Harper regime, in just four short years, has
damaged Canada's relationships with the EU, the Muslim world, the Middle
East, Africa, Latin America and China.
Canada's ugly new face
It is difficult to assess the international impact of each of these
examples. Canada rarely gets covered in the news and most people in Europe
or other countries, developed and developing, may know little about these
issues. But eventually foreign policy reaches down to ordinary people
around the world - those moved by Israel's occupation of the West Bank,
those who want safe food for their kids, those aware of the appalling
working conditions of workers in developing nations like India, the
millions who are opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
hundreds of millions watching the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
We have been able for a long time to rest on our laurels because these
issues don't often overlap for most people. But eventually it starts to
break through the long-standing positive image of Canada. And it breaks
through with precisely the people who play a major role in determining the
political culture and government policies of their respective countries.
These are the people who are the most engaged in their democracies, who
influence their governments, who engage with civil society organizations
and the media.
In short, the people who know are those who are in positions to spread the
word about a new global phenomenon: the ugly Canadian.
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