Wednesday-Night

8 September
 International Issues for the Campaign
Dr. Gordon Smith, The Centre for Global Studies
Canada has important foreign policy choices to make; even no policy is in fact a kind of policy. Is it too much to hope that the election in this country will include debate on the major international issues facing Canada? Probably. Is it because there are no issues on which the choice of Canadian policy really matters? Definitely not. Is it because most Canadians simply are not interested? Maybe. That is worrisome. We seem less engaged than in the past.
That has to change. Canadians have to wake-up and pay attention to what is happening in the world. Canada’s security and prosperity are both of critical importance, and both are significantly impacted by what is happening in the world, for better or for worse. This makes them election issues.
The Canadian election overlaps the American election. In the latter, foreign policy issues are already obviously very important – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to name some of the most obvious issues. There are differences of view between the two presidential candidates that are already apparent. They will be debated. This is how a democracy is supposed to work.
Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain have made clear that climate change will be a major priority for them. While the policies of the Democrats are more detailed and convincing than those of the Republicans, there is no reason to doubt that the United States will start working much more actively than during the Bush Administration to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. There will be a spurt of technological development. Canada will no longer be able to hide behind the differences amongst the major economies of the world. We need to hear in more detail how the political parties in Canada intend to deal with this challenge globally. And we need to ensure that we will be able to compete with the green technologies of the future.
Climate change policy is, of course, in significant part a function of energy policy. Despite the increasingly apparent determination of both presidential aspirants to reduce dependence on oil and on suppliers from the Middle East, this does not mean that there will be a bigger welcome mat for enhanced exports from Canada’s tar sands. The carbon footprint and more generally the environmental impact of this oil have many critics. Canada should be a leader in the global efforts to find a “deal” that will be much more effective then Kyoto.
The likelihood is that the United States will not only talk about the need for a more multilateral approach but, to a lesser degree than the talk, actually walk in that way. Both McCain and Obama are conscious of the need to act in the company of other like-minded states. But there is a major difference between the two. Read article
May 30
UNITED NATIONS: CANADA DEMANDS ACTION FOR WORLD HUMANITARIAN AID
(RCI) Canada is demanding a tougher international response to countries that block humanitarian aid.  Canada told the United Nations Security Council that these countries should be punished for their delaying tactics. Canada’s ambassador to the UN, John McNee, described the situation in Burma as a matter of life and death. Burma has been harshly criticized for delaying the entry of foreign aid workers into its country to help in the relief effort following a devastating cyclone. The storm hit certain parts of the country more than three weeks ago, killing almost 134,000 people and leaving 2.5 million homeless. Burma only began allowing foreign aid workers into the country this week.
May 27
PARIS: PM PITCHES ‘GREEN’ PLAN
(RCI) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper began his three-day, four-nation European visit in the French capital, where he met with President Nicolas Sarkozy. The two leaders met for a half-hour and discussed the environmental plan put forward by Mr. Harper’s Conservative government and freer trade between his country and the EU. The prime minister also inaugurated an exposition related to the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Quebec City before leaving for Bonn, where he’ll meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr. Harper will also visit Italy and the UK. The visit is intended in part to prepare for the G8 summit this summer in Japan, a meeting that will focus on climate change. Canada and the U.S. could find themselves isolated at the event for their opposition to any new global environmental plan to replace the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change which doesn’t include all major polluters, including China and India.

May 13, 2008
Jeremy Kinsman: Diplomatically Speaking
Can we deliver food aid at the point of a gun?
The title of Pierre Trudeau’s only full-length speech on foreign policy in the House of Commons, in June 1981, was “Who is my neighbour?”
It is a question Canadians still need to ask. As current crises in Burma, Zimbabwe and Darfur destroy lives, are we to be detached and indifferent, waiting to help only if called upon? Or will we Canadians always be personally affronted by human suffering, no matter where it occurs?
Trudeau’s sense of a world community had much to do with the economic handicaps affecting poor countries. It is a concern as acute today, especially in Africa, as it was in his time. Despite decades and hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid, progress in Africa is sporadic and scattered.
There are enough success stories — Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Mozambique — to show that the problems are not insuperable if the international community can be mobilized. But is the will still there?