On April 2, Toronto Star revealed that Canada played the central role in thwarting a Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council resolution asserting water as a human right. In what could have been a landmark declaration protecting communities from the threat of expropriation or profiteering, water rights activists including respected environmental and civil society leaders from Canada left with a sense of foreboding, ever more fearful that without a clear verdict from the Council, corporate interests will increasingly take precedence over the right to life in a water-stressed world.
Sadly, this US-backed stance (with Canada possibly playing the role of proxy, as the US does not hold a seat in the body) is only the latest affirmation of the accelerating corporate tilt of Canadian policies in the international arena as witnessed recently in climate change talks in Bali. As acerbically noted last December by Peter Gorrie, talks like those held in Bali or for that matter in Geneva are beginning to follow a predictable script:
Long days of desultory talks are followed, as departure time looms, by chaotic – often angry – marathon negotiations. When agreement is almost at hand, Russia, pretty much invisible to that point, raises a furious complaint, only to be mollified by what amounts to a pat on the head.
Canada dominates the Fossil of the Day awards for obstruction, even though, as at the just-completed 13th annual meeting in Bali, it might have spent most of the two-week event on the sidelines. The United States remains intransigent until the last minute, when it dramatically relents.
A deal is made. It never exceeds the lowest expectations. Officials praise it; environmental advocates express disappointment.
While this trend preceeds the current government's gutting of climate change initiatives (Canada fell far behind its Kyoto commitments years ago), it has grown worrisome with Canada now joining a small but influential group of obstructionist countries who actively resist international initiatives and obligations. This was most odiously embodied in September 2007 by our stunning rejection alongside the US, Australia, and New Zealand of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This also led the Conservative minority government to favour the "Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate" in April 2007 as a strictly voluntary, technology-based alternative to Kyoto, making good on their promise to pull out of Kyoto's binding emission reduction targets.
While one may take umbrage from the fact that such treaties are often toothless and wildly ineffective, the "take my marbles and go home" attitude reflects a certain contempt for the international state system in favour of a looser and more opportunistic coalition of actors that reflect the interests of particular alliances such as NATO and governments with strong corporate ties. Moreover, the disrespect extends to the countless Canadians drawn from civil society who have played important roles in the treaty making process. Most alarmingly though, it represents a dramatic shift from a country that has for many years inhabited the respectable terrain of a consensus-forging middle power in the international imaginary, to a more naked role as a loyal lieutenant of Empire and servant of big business. Back to the Future indeed.
