Canada’s decision to pull out of Kyoto has sparked a great deal of sharp reaction on all sides but a Canadian working as a policy analyst at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland makes the case that we are a “nice country” gone very, very bad…
The international order was destroyed in the 1930s because global-wreckers like Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany brazenly flouted their treaty obligations and turned their backs on international co-operation. As this government breezily reneges on Canada’s previous promises – and risks unravelling the world’s most important environmental treaty – it should reflect on what it feels like to suddenly be in the wreckers club. And ponder the long-term costs of undermining our moral authority to seek international co-operation across a range of issues, not just the environment.
[Read the whole piece: Quitting Kyoto: Un-Canadian » CIC.
UPDATE: For what it’s worth, the author of these comments is a fellow named John Hancock, a former advisor to Liberal International Trade Minister Jim Peterson Roy MacLaren (see comments below). So he was part of the gang, then, that signed on to Kyoto but then did nothing at all to implement the protocol, despite the fact that Chretien and Martin governments ran up huge budgetary surpluses and could have easily afforded a whole lot of Kyoto programming.
UPPERDATE: Hancock has an important clarification which you can read in the comment section below.
These comments by Switzerland are outrageous. Regardless of one’s view on Kyoto, it is completely different than the Treaty of Versailles. Canada is hardly rearming in an attempt to take over the world.
Furthermore, both Hitler and Mussolini were murderous psychopaths, while Stephen Harper is a knob, he is far from a tyrant.
These people should be ashamed of themselves for dishonouring the memories of those who perished during the Second World War by making a completely out of context comparison between the leader of a democratic country and two totaltarian leaders.
Hi John —
Just to be sure we’re clear here: It’s not “Switzerland” that is saying these things. It’s a Canadian who works in Switzerland for the WTO. His name is John Hancock. These are Hancock’s opinions, not any one country! Be sure to click through on the link in the post for more.
FYI, Hancock is a Liberal partisan who used to work for Jim Peterson. I’m not sure why his puerile Nazi comparisons would merit a link, but it’s your blog.
Are you sure his comments were from The Onion?
… and in related news, John Hancock states that 2+2=pumpkin.
Who is paying this Canadian? If i am, he is FIRED!! Better yet, bring him home and hang him!!
In John Hancock’s piece “Quitting Kyoto: Un-Canadian” he writes:
“At a minimum, it has seriously damaged Canada’s reputation abroad, which only a month ago, was ranked the “best country brand” in the world.”
Well, if one peruses the piece Hancock wrote on Dec. 2 entitled “Top Four Reasons We Should Ignore Rankings (But Won’t)” he manages to contradict his own argument regarding Canada’s current ranking, compared to what it used to be.
In the Dec. 2 piece, Hancock questions the legitimacy of rankings:
Hancock asks:
1. What qualifies FP to rank the world’s Top 100 Thinkers, anyway? Or, for that matter, the World Economic Forum to decide the most competitive economies? Or Maclean’s the top universities? These lists are delivered with such authority and gravitas that few of us question the data or methods used to compile them.”
Then I can justifiably ask: What qualifies John Hancock to criticize Canada, anyway?
Hancock goes on …
“Is the impact of individuals, institutions, or countries even measurable, given that what’s being assessed are qualities more than quantities?”
How was the quality of “model international citizen” — apparently a designation once held by Canada — even measured? Can that designation be quantified?
Hancock also says …
“Even if the global impact of individuals or institutions were measurable, does it make any sense to rank them? Ranking is a zero-sum game in which one participant’s gain is unavoidably the other’s loss.”
Exactly. Who cares if we’re ranked a notch or two below what Hancock thinks we merit. Those rankings are arbitrary at best.
Hancock should pay closer attention to his own words, ending as he does his Dec. 2 piece with:
“Maybe the modern world’s obsession with ranking everything … says more about us than the subjects we are listing. In a chaotic and ever-changing world, we grasp on to numbers and rankings to provide us with “facts” and “truth,” embracing the illusion that someone (anyone) can deliver “certainty” in an uncertain age. …”
Yup, Hancock’s right: “Quitting Kyoto: Un-Canadian” says more about him than it does about Canada.
I don’t understand the tendency to completely discount what someone has said recently because of a past association to one political party or another and their past failures.
Hancock is currently working for the WTO in Switzerland. It’s entirely possible that his opinion is informed by knowledge, not partisan talking points.
DPChurch, I would agree with you IF that rule were applied equally across the board. But we both know that’s not the case. Time & again, allegations have been made and a rush to judgment arrived at based on guilt by association.
He is destroying our country. Cutting back on things we need to buy things we don’t. He has turned our democracy into a dictatorship. His MP’s nothing more then puppets. There is no accountability, they steal from the people and break laws and twist truths. They should all be in jail.
As far as it wrong to compare him to the likes of Hitler, and Stalin…how do you think they started ? How many people go through history and wonder why on earth the people let them go so far…well we are a shining example of how.
From Arthur L. Caplan, “Misusing the Nazi Analogy” (2005)
“Science” 22 July, 2005, vol. 309, s. 535
“… Sadly, too often those who draw an analogy between current behavior and what the Nazis did do not know what they are talking about.
… the cavalier use of the Nazi analogy [in any discussion, including political ones, IMO] in an attempt to bolster an argument is unethical. Sixty years after the fall of the Third Reich, we owe it to those who suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis to insist that those who invoke the Nazi analogy do so with care.”
Arthur L. Caplan is chair of the Department of Medical Ethics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Thank you for the comments on my post – even all the negative ones! – but I’d like to set the record straight on several things.
My main point in the post is that Canada has an outstanding reputation internationally that’s been seriously damaged by quitting Kyoto. That’s just a statement of fact – and it remains to be seen what the lasting impact will be.
My second point is that walking away from treaties is rarely a good thing – especially for a globally interdependent country like Canada that, under BOTH Conservative and Liberal governments, has consistently sought the rule of law, rather than the law of the jungle, in international relations. The Rio negotiations, which led to Kyoto, began under PM Mulroney.
At a basic level, countries sign treaties, not because the obligations are a breeze, but because they’re difficult. If every country walked away from international commitments that are tough to live up to, then all global treaties or agreements would disintegrate – and that would be bad news for Canada. What would Canadians think if the US announced it was ditching NAFTA and the WTO – and blocking our exports – because of economic stresses at home? We’re infuriated when the US “interprets” these rules in a protectionist way – eg. “Buy America”.
The third point I tried to make – disastrously! – is that the international order disintegrated in the 1930s because countries like Italy and Germany flouted their treaty obligations – and that while our globalized era is certainly not the 1930s, the fragility of the current international system shows some worrying similarities. Canada could not be MORE DIFFERENT from Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. Prime Minister Harper is obviously NOTHING like Hitler or Mussolini!
But that was my point (very poorly made). Undermining an important global treaty – even one that raises major economic and scientific questions – is extraordinarily “un-Canadian”. It’s deeply anomalous that Canada, of all countries, suddenly finds itself weakening, rather than building, international cooperation. My view – easier said than done – is that Canada should have renegotiated its obligations – if they proved unrealistic – not reneged on them. And that applies as much to previous Liberal governments, as to the current Conservative one.
For the record, I was once an advisor to a Liberal minister, but Roy Maclaren, not Jim Peterson, and I had zero involvement in the Kyoto negotiations. By 1997, I was at the WTO.
If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it is “don’t mention the war!” And if I have unintentionally insulted anyone – or left the impression I think Canada is anything less than one of the most remarkable and admirable countries on the planet – please accept my sincere apologies. But I am deeply proud of my country. And I stand by my argument that pulling out of Kyoto – especially in the way it was done – was not our ‘finest hour’. And ultimately not in the national or…
Taking a valid point and twisting it far from it’s author’s meaning and tut tutting; all the while allowing James’s eliminationist rhetoric to skate buy unanswered seems to be so common in right wing circles these days.
Only one of Mr Hancock and James uttered threats against someone’s person, but let me guess they weren’t being serious hey?
The stated intention of Kyoto we have been told over and over was to combat global warming.
Since this crisis was brought to the world attention some very unnerving things have happened.
The green jobs we where promised have not materialized.
Companies touting green technology, rather than being cutting edge market leading entities, are the biggest dependants on government subsidization, they are not viable, some have even gone bankrupt. Carbon trading markets are a losing venture, some have even closed shop.
Emails have been uncovered that indicate the whole crisis was manufactured as a way for scientific institutions and the attendant bureaucracies to scam billions out of nations in bad faith agreements, the grandaddy being the Kyoto Protocol.
As much as someone attempting to now pull back their comparison of Harper to a dictator, but doing so with a “well he’s not hitler, but he’s doing something hitler did”, sorry but that contention doesn’t sound like it was made in good faith.
You still don’t get it.
The Kyoto protocol is just as good as the document that Chamberlain used to declare “Peace in our time”.
Harper is doing the right thing by getting us out of an agreement that Chretien signed us onto for no other reason than to pad his resume. It’s a bad deal, created in bad faith, by those with no other agenda than to appropriate wealth.
Liberals I submit, are more upset that as time goes on the only legacy they will have left is Sponsorship and SSM. But then after the flaw discovered in the divorce act, it would appear SSM is going off the list as well.
FYI
Before someone decides to point out that the budgets got balanced, that happened courtesy of the gst…..the tax Liberals promised to axe, and the conservatives actually cut.
Pulling out of the useless Kyoto Agreement saved the taxpayers of Canada $14 billlion dollars. As a taxpayer, I’m quite happy about not giving away this amount of money; especially when Kyoto does so very little to help reduce Greehouse Gases. In FACT, Kyoto only covers 15% of emmissions.
Canada quite rightly left Kyoto and lobbied for an agreement that would cover all large emmitters such as USA, China, India, etc. Many countries see Canada as a leader for real progress on GHG reduction.
Thankfully the Canadian Government dumped the ineffective Kyoto Protocol that Mr. Hancock cannot realize only made him and the Liberals feel better without real results.
I and the majority of Canadians could not be more proud of our country and the actions of the Federal Government on this matter.
Watch the ratings next year on “Best Country Brand” and Canada will be number one again.
Mr. Hancock:
It’s good of you to issue a more reasoned follow-up on these issues. I disagree with your position as you’ve state it, but think that it is within the bounds of reasonable disagreement.
Nonetheless, I’m quite unclear as to why you think that such a burden of blame should be placed on the Conservatives when we in fact all know very well that it was the actions of the Liberal governments for which both yourself and Jennifer Welsh worked which made it impossible for Canada to meet the Kyoto targets. Presuming that the federal government wanted to meet its original commitments, what do you think that it could have done in light of the actions taken by their predecessors? (This also means acknowledging that it is not – as you now write – “suddenly” that the Canadian government is “weakening international cooperation”. Perhaps the Conservatives accelerated or aggravated that process, but they did not begin it.)
I’d also just like to note that I continue to find it disturbing that, apart from the Hitler/Mussolini reference, an apparent university lecturer and professional diplomat would attempt to frame difficult policy issues in such divisive and frankly demagogic terms: it’s perfectly possible to disagree with the Harper’s governments policies without suggesting that they’re just what “may play well in Calgary, but it plays disastrously everywhere else”; it’s possible to disagree without hauling out boilerplate Liberal Party campaign rhetoric boogeymen about hidden agendas and “the Bush playbook”. Most importantly, it’s possible to engage these complicated issues without framing them around strawman scapegoats at every turn – whether Calgarians, “the Bush playbook”, the Conservative Party, etc, let alone bringing in the fascist analogies. You’re perfectly entitled to disagree with the Conservatives and dislike Calgarians and whatnot. But you do disservice to the issues by framing them in such obviously caricatured and incomplete terms. Frankly, that’s the kind of analysis one expects to see on an internet comment thread – not from university lecturers and professional diplomats. One might even say that your wholly unnuanced, black-and-white, good-vs-evil, rhetorically extreme approach to difficult questions of international politics is “straight out of the Bush playbook”, in rhetorical style if not simply in substance.