Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams, this is a Red Eye Podcast, produced at the studios of Vancouver Cooperative Radio. In our episode today, James Mingy talks with Eve Engler about the current push to deny Canada a temporary seat on the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council currently has five temporary seats available. Canada, Ireland and Norway are vying for two of those seats, with the final vote to be held next month on June 17th.
Speaker: On May 19th, an open letter was published calling for a no vote for Canada to join the Security Council. The letter was signed by many prominent activists, including Judy Rebick, Harsha Walia, Roger Waters, and Noam Chomsky. Eve Engler was also among the signees. He is a writer and activist based in Montreal. His latest book is House of Mirrors, Justin Trudeau's foreign policy. And Eve Engler joins me now from his home. Hello, Eve. How's it going? Very well, thanks.
Speaker: So from Canada's perspective, how do you think its campaign for this seat on the UN Security Council is coming along?
Speaker: Well, they're campaigning very hard. Justin Trudeau is calling officials from around the world on a daily basis. Foreign Minister Francois -Philippe Champagne is also calling different officials around the world, calling UN ambassadors of different countries. Obviously, the pandemic has made it more difficult to attend different summits, but just before the pandemic,
Speaker: Trudeau attended the African Union summit in Ethiopia, was going to go to the CARICOM, the Caribbean Community Summit, but then the Wet'suwet 'en protests undermined that. But they have been campaigning very hard. Canada's ambassador to the UN is campaigning very hard. They've spent millions of dollars, whether they are getting support. That's a little bit unclear at this point, but they are definitely taking this very seriously.
Speaker: Why do you think Canada is so desperate to get this seat on the Security Council? I think there's sort of two parts. One part is that Trudeau, as part of his rhetoric after defeating Stephen Harper, there was a whole discussion of Canada being back.
Speaker: They have really played up this supposed support for international rules -based order. Obviously, Stephen Harper's government failed to secure a seat on the Security Council back in 2010, and that was a fairly embarrassing moment for Harper. Trudeau has tried to distinguish
Speaker: his policy from Harper's policy and the winning a seat on the Security Council would go some way in fulfilling that sort of rhetorical or public relations kind of distinguishment from Harper's foreign policy. But I think alongside that, the desire for a seat on the Security Council really is explained by the fact that Global Affairs Canada, the foreign affairs bureaucracy,
Speaker: The logic of the foreign affairs bureaucracy is to accumulate power. And so a seat on the UN's highest decision making or most powerful decision making body is viewed as an extension of Canada's power in the world. And I think that's something that
Speaker: We don't talk about very much, but I think it's something that actually motivates a certain amount of Canadian foreign policy. And this bid for the Security Council seat is partly about the whole Canadian state, or specifically the foreign affairs apparatus of the Canadian state, wanting to accumulate a greater power to shape world affairs.
Speaker: In the open letter, Canada is listed as among the 12 largest arms exporters. Can you give us a little bit more detail about that and maybe a bit of perspective about where Canada fits in the global arms trade? Canada
Speaker: sells into the billions of dollars of weaponry to the US military every year. There's a special accord that allows those arms to be sold to US military, US arms companies, mostly parts, mostly not full finished product. But there's a special accord that allows those to be delivered without even compiling the
Speaker: quantity of sales, so we don't even know exact data on how many billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons go to the US to support the American military. But more broadly, the Canadian arms industry is increasingly exporting to the world, underwritten by the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Crown Corporation.
Speaker: usually with the support of often with the support of Canadian diplomats in the field. Probably the most egregious example in recent years is with regards to Saudi Arabia. Now, most of the attention is that $14 billion light armored vehicle sale that is an accord between the Canadian Commercial Corporation
Speaker: and the government of Saudi Arabia. But much beyond that, there are Canadian sniper rifles that have been sold to the Saudis that have appeared in Yemen. So while the Saudis have been engaged in this incredibly destructive war in Yemen that's left more than 100 ,000 people dead, huge cholera and other health consequences to this devastation in Yemen,
Speaker: Canada has continued to sell millions into the tens of millions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia every year. Billions of dollars of light armored vehicles to the Saudis. So Canada has long been a major global arms exporter.
Speaker: Primarily to the US but increasingly selling weapons to a number of the the gulf monarchies not just Saudi Arabia UAE, which is also heavily involved in Yemen and this is again to repeat really facilitated by Canadian diplomacy right the at the big arms bazaar the IDEX arms bazaar last year.
Speaker: in Abu Dhabi in the UAE there were a dozen things fifteen different canadian trade commissioners there was officials from department of national defense from global affairs canada a canadian army military official so
Speaker: All the many elements of the Canadian state behind the push for Canadian global arms exports with very little concern for what the human toll is in terms of fueling conflicts. Along with arms trade to Saudi Arabia and basically supporting the war against Yemen,
Speaker: Canada's for decades been a very staunch supporter of Israel and their policies, especially regarding the West Bank and Gaza. Can you let us know what's happening lately there? And one thing in particular mentioned in the letter was something about a UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Can you give us the details about that?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, the UN Security Council resolution that was passed at the end of the Obama administration, so the Americans didn't veto it, it basically calls on countries to distinguish between products that come from occupied settlements, that Israel controls contrary to international law, and the Canadian government has
Speaker: It calls on countries to distinguish between these products versus products coming from Israel proper. The Canadian government has decidedly not followed that resolution in the sense that the Canada -Israel trade agreement
Speaker: allows products produced in occupied West Bank settlements to enter Canada duty -free. They fall under the Canada -Israel Free Trade Agreement. That's a trade agreement that goes back to the late 1990s, but the Trudeau government has recently expanded.
Speaker: Another example of that is the Trudeau government. There's a campaign to have wines produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank that are currently labeled as products of Israel.
Speaker: to be labeled properly. In fact, the Canada Food Administration actually, after a push by an activist over this issue, actually said that these wines that were labeled as products of Israel needed to be relabeled because that was an erroneous food labeling. And the Trudeau government
Speaker: immediately reverse course after there was a pushback on this issue. And there's a big court case going on in this when you actually have the Superior Court of Canada, not the Supreme Court, which level of Canadian court, but that said that the wines shouldn't be labeled as products of Israel. And the Trudeau government has actually appealed that decision and going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada
Speaker: to basically say that Canadian consumers don't have the right to know that a wine is being produced in an illegal Israeli settlement in occupied territory in the West Bank. So the Trudeau government has taken complete refusal to uphold the UN Security Council resolution from late 2016.
Speaker: And that's just a small part of its anti -Palestinian policies. One of the things that a number of us that engage in this campaign to oppose Canada's seat on the UN Security Council have done, or specifically Karen Rodman from Just Peace Advocates, she compiled
Speaker: Canada's votes at the UN over the past 20 years and compared them to Norway and Ireland, the two countries that Canada is competing with for a seat on the Security Council. And Canada has voted against 166 resolutions upholding Palestinian rights over the past 20 years. Norway and Ireland have not voted against one of those resolutions. So Canada
Speaker: has, particularly since about 2005, has totally isolated itself against the rest of the world when it comes to Palestinian rights at the UN. And for that reason alone, it doesn't deserve a seat on the Security Council. Something else that was brought up in the open letter is
Speaker: Canada's role in NATO. I get the sense anyway that after Canada withdrew from Afghanistan that our role in NATO is kind of quieted down as well. Can you tell us a bit more about what Canada is up to regarding NATO these days?
Speaker: Well, first of all, it needs to be mentioned or we should be reminded that NATO is a nuclear weapons club. It has a nuclear arms council and Canada participates in that, even though the Canadian government claims to be against nuclear weapons. And Canada continues to have a NATO mission in Latvia on the border with Russia, 540 Canadian troops. Canada leads that NATO force in Latvia. Canada has
Speaker: It has supported NATO naval vessels patrols in the Black Sea. Canada continues to be a major player within NATO and supporting NATO militarism and refusing
Speaker: as the letter mentions in another area, of refusing to move against nuclear weapons. And part of how Canada, the Trudeau government, has said that refused to participate in efforts to abolish nuclear weapons is by saying that this undermines NATO. And at least one of the two countries Canada is competing with in the Security Council of Ireland is not part of NATO and has shown quite a bit more willingness to join efforts supported by most of the world to try to
Speaker: get rid of nuclear weapons. So the Trudeau government, you know, it frames itself as being a sort of peace -oriented government. But if you look at their policies with regards to NATO and you have example after example of Justin Trudeau saying that NATO is incredibly important and promoting NATO, you see that in their defence policy statement from 2017, where they explicitly, repeatedly endorse NATO. And you see it with their policy of increasing Canadian military spending.
Speaker: The government has a plan to increase Canadian military spending by 70 % between 2017 and 2027. So they really have a policy of supporting NATO, of supporting militarism. And this is in a context of, first of all, NATO being, in my opinion, illegitimate alliance, but also of
Speaker: There is real crises with regards, particularly the climate crisis, and the money that's being put into the military and into NATO exercises is really money that should be oriented towards dealing with the climate crisis. The military is incredibly damaging. Ecologically, Canada is the biggest institutional contributor of greenhouse gas emissions of the federal government, the Canadian military.
Speaker: So the Trudeau government has this sort of rhetoric around being, you know, peace oriented, caring about the environment. And I think that their NATO policy very much goes against that rhetoric. The open letter mentions several points, reasons why Canada should not be allowed to be on the Security Council. Several of them are
Speaker: seem to mean to be not really all that well known. Can you go through maybe two or three other reasons why Canada should not be getting a seat on the Security Council? It lists some examples of Canada being just offside with international treaties. So for instance, the Baselban Amendment, which is basically about blocking the export of trash from wealthy countries to poor countries.
Speaker: That was ratified in the end of last year after 97 countries ratified the accord. Canada has refused to ratify the accord. Both Norway and Ireland have ratified that accord. It seems, in my opinion, it should not be very controversial that rich countries should be dumping their trash. There's obviously the story about Canadian trash being dumped in the Philippines.
Speaker: a couple of years ago that received a certain amount of attention, or a treaty around torture. The Canadian government has not endorsed the UN treaty around torture, both Ireland and Norway have. Even if you go look at international labor organization cords, there's more than 50 of those that the Canadian government hasn't endorsed. There are some that Ireland and Norway haven't endorsed, but there are many more that Canada hasn't endorsed. So even just these, you know,
Speaker: Again, we have this Trudeau government that's claiming its rhetoric around foreign policy is that it stands up for the international rules -based order. But it's not even signing what should be quite uncontroversial international treaties. And that in and of itself, again, would, I think, reason enough to not support Canada's bid for a seat on the Security Council. A bit closer to home, since Trudeau was elected Prime Minister, there's been
Speaker: talk and talk and talk about reconciliation with Canada's First Nations. Can you give us a bit about what the reality is? I mean, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Canada's violation of that. Obviously, the sending in militarized police into Watsuiten territory in recent months is a prime example of, you know, they talk a decent game when it comes to reconciliation.
Speaker: even sometimes talk about decolonization. But when there is a corporate interests that want to use or exploit indigenous lands, that talk of reconciliation really gets pushed to the side.
Speaker: And UN Human Rights Committee has documented Canada's different abuses and failings with regards to Indigenous people. And that's a whole other question of many Indigenous activists, scholars that have been bringing this issue up for a while, just with regards to the colonization within Canada and the inequities,
Speaker: These are the Indigenous people. That in and of itself is argument enough to oppose Canada's seat on the Security Council. There's a long list of dispossession with regards to Indigenous people that, again, the Trudeau government has sort of talked a decent game about ending that, but as we saw with with Suerton, the government's far from fulfilling its stated claims.
Speaker: Tell us about the open letter and the petition where people can find it and how they can add their names to it.
Speaker: It's at foreignpolicy .ca slash petition. So just foreignpolicy .ca. It's on the top of the website and really invite people to sign the petition. It's about 1 ,500 people have signed it in recent days. It's going to be delivered to all the UN ambassadors by email and also by through different social media, through targeting their Twitter accounts.
Speaker: It's part of a whole campaign it was released in the in the Toronto Star and is actually received a certain amount of media attention in over the past few days and it's about breaking through this media discussion around
Speaker: specifically the bid for Security Council seat, which is entirely oriented around, you know, are we going to win, how much money is being put into it, and bringing real substance to that discussion. If a Canadian bid to sit on the most powerful body of the UN is not the right time to have a wide -ranging debate about Canadian foreign policy, when is? So this petition and this campaign is very much about
Speaker: taking that moment of Canada seeking a Security Council seat to bring in some real substance critical discussion of Canadian foreign policy. But simultaneously, we do actually want to impact the vote of UN ambassadors. Canada isn't a tough battle to get the seat with Ireland, Norway, or to get one of the two seats available. And if you take a look at the facts,
Speaker: If you compare the three countries clearly from a progressive standpoint, Canada's foreign policy is much worse than Ireland and Norway's. And the hope here is that the UN ambassadors, ultimately, these are secret votes. So even if they've been lobbied and pressured by the Canadian government, Canada is obviously a much more powerful country than both Ireland and Norway and has all kinds of advantages.
Speaker: linguistic advantages, wealth advantage, et cetera, et cetera, when it comes to this campaign for the Security Council seat. But at the end of the day, it's up to the actual individual ambassadors, and we're hoping that morality and right and wrong may impact some of their votes. And if Canada does lose a seat at the Security Council, it provides an opportunity to, because it will get a certain amount, a fair bit of media attention, it provides an opportunity to reassess
Speaker: Canadian foreign policy and there are fundamental problems with canadian foreign policy that's overwhelmingly driven by canada's relationship to empire the us and about advancing canadian corporate interest abroad right that's what overwhelmingly drives canadian foreign policy the rhetoric of courses is something different they talk about human rights internationalism
Speaker: And so the hope is that this campaign will have some impact on putting forward some critical discussion and potentially even impacting the vote, which will allow for a more wide ranging challenge to Canadian foreign policy. Looking far beyond just this election for a temporary seat on the Security Council, do you think in this day and age there's even a point or a use for a UN Security Council anymore?
Speaker: Well, I mean, the Security Council is a very undemocratic entity because there are five countries that have vetoes. And interestingly enough, part of why that exists is because Canada backed that back during the creation of the
Speaker: the U .N., and sometimes we hear about how Canada, the first time Canada ever lost its seat, its bid for a seat on the Security Council in 2010. In fact, that's not correct. It wasn't the first time. The first time Canada lost its bid for a Security Council seat was in 1946, right after the creation of the U .N. and the smaller countries that opposed the Big Five veto on the Security Council voted against Canada because they were angry that Canada had backed the veto for the Security Council.
Speaker: So the whole Security Council is something that obviously needs to be questioned. And so that's something that there's need for some fundamental reforms of the UN structure. So the Security Council is obviously responsible for the deployment of UN peacekeepers and military force under the UN banner.
Speaker: One of the things that I've put forward in some of my writing previously is to say that Canada, when it comes to peacekeeping, Canada should state that it's only prepared to send troops as part of peacekeeping missions if they're backed by the entire General Assembly. The General Assembly, of course, is a much more democratic body that all the countries participate in, and it's not
Speaker: totally controlled by the big powers. So taking power away from the Security Council is a generally positive thing. So for instance, obviously eliminating the vetoes would be part of a step towards a very important step in that direction, but maybe also increasing the size of the number of members of the Security Council.
Speaker: But so yeah, the Security Council itself has serious problems. It's only one element of the UN structure more generally that has problems that you see that the American Empire is incredibly powerful throughout the UN structure, even while on one hand attacking the UN, the US and some of the right -wing forces in Canada,
Speaker: while they attack the UN on one hand, they are happy to use the UN to fulfill their goals. A very obvious example in recent years is the case of Haiti and the UN occupation of Haiti, and Canada played a big part in that, and obviously the US as well.
Speaker: The UN occupation of Haiti would have very unlikely that it would have happened if the deployment of UN forces was something decided by the entire General Assembly of the UN because the African Union and the Caribbean community, which are about together about 70 countries, about 40
Speaker: or so percent of UN members, they both opposed the 2004 coup in Haiti, which the UN occupation was about extending. So yes, the whole question of the Security Council is something that needs to be addressed, but in the short term, the reality is that the historical record is that Canada is voting when it has been on the Security Council.
Speaker: its voting is very closely aligned with US voting. So a seat for Canada on the Security Council is really just another echo of Washington on the Security Council. It's been really great to have a chance to speak with you, Eve. Thanks very much for all your work and taking some time to speak with us.
Speaker: Thanks a lot for having me. I've been speaking with Eve Engler. Eve Engler's latest book is House of Mirrors, Justin Trudeau's foreign policy, available now from Black Rose Books. You can read Eve's articles on foreignpolicy .ca, as well as eveengler .com, and the petition to deny Canada a seat on the UN Security Council can be found at foreignpolicy .ca. The Red Eye podcast is produced at the studios of Vancouver Co -op Radio,
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