Canada has a history of supporting UN initiatives, and of contributing to UN peacekeeping efforts. We are, with what hope of success I cannot guess, hoping to be given a seat on the UN Security Council.
These seats are offered to nations whose wisdom in security matters is recognized.
So Justin Trudeau wants to make as good an impression as possible.
The co-operation of UN member states in implementing UN climate change protocols and declarations, (Kyoto 1995 and Paris 2015) is, implicitly, expected. Adherence to UN policies on Indigenous populations is equally expected of the governments of UN member states. This support of UN priorities is giving Canada a headache currently, as the fossil fuel industry wants to disregard both the climate change accords and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples declaration (UNDRIP).
Several Canadian provinces, including our own, are more affected economically by these UN agreements than others, and serious questions about priorities are being asked. The answers, if they are ever decided on, will define Canada in the eyes of the United Nations, and if Trudeau wants a seat at the table of the UN Security Council, he’ll have to resolve this conundrum.
Can he maintain the economic benefits of fossil fuel production, while at the same time implementing the UN’s climate change and indigenous rights policies?
I don’t envy our prime minister. It will be a juggling act worth watching. Liberals have at tried to be all things to all people, but in this case that will almost certainly be impossible. Young Justin will have to disappoint somebody, whether it is the fossil fuel industry, Native Canadians, climatologists or the UN.
It’s quite likely he’ll disappoint all of them. Politics has been called the Art of the Possible, but
Trudeau may be learning that his current problem has no possible solution.
Ed Healy,
Marystown
