Once Again Liberals Talk the Talk — but Where’s the Walk?
by Yves Engler
Mark Carney is a ‘lying Liberal’, not a defender of international law, let alone an anti-imperialist. The prime minister’s speech in Davos reflects a long Liberal tradition of seeking to convince people to ‘judge what I say, not what I do’.
At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland yesterday Carney gave a speech challenging Donald Trump and defending sovereignty. He was widely lauded for explicitly criticizing the so-called international rules-based order.
Liberal Canadian politicians are adept at rhetorical flourishes and too often liberal, even left-minded people buy their snake oil. But Carney has an actual record and except for a small positive shift towards China — driven by corporate Canada — that record is highly imperialistic.
Days ago, Carney said he would join the Trump-chaired, international law violating, so-called ‘Gaza Board of Peace’. The PM has repeatedly said Canada would only accept a “Zionist Palestinian state” and his foreign affairs minister, Anita Anand, described Canada’s “unwavering support for Israel’s security.” In practice, this means refusing to uphold Canadian law — on arms sales, registered charities, foreign enlistment and war criminals in Canada — vis a vis a genocidal apartheid state.
Two weeks ago, Carney “welcomed” the US kidnapping Venezuela’s president in a crass violation of international law that killed about 100 people. Canadian soldiers working through NORAD and Operation Caribbe, as well as integrated in US units, likely assisted US violence on Venezuela.
Last week Carney echoed US/Israeli statements on Iran. Israel was hoping to reignite its summer war on that country, which Carney backed. In June Canada’s PM immediately labelled Israel’s destruction of multiple buildings in Tehran and the assassination of numerous scientists and military officials as “defending itself”. A month ago, foreign minister Anand publicly rejected restarting diplomatic relations with Tehran. (Canada has sanctions on Iran, labels the country a state-sponsor of terror and lists part of its military a terrorist organization.)
Carney’s Canada remains part of the Haiti Core Group, which has been dictating that country’s affairs since the US/France/Canada overthrew its elected government in 2004. Canada remains part of the imperialistic Five Eyes, NATO and NORAD. Last year Carney hosted the G7.
Under pressure from Trump, Carney has radically increased Canadian military spending. This country’s armed forces are structured to assist US global power projection. Despite Trump’s annexation threats, it’s unclear if a single one of the hundreds of treaty-level agreements, memoranda of understanding and bilateral forums on defence Canada has with the US military has been paused or canceled. The Canadian military has maintained a slew of aggressive international deployments alongside the US. Joint naval patrols in far flung oceans, US arms testing in Canada and officer exchanges all seem to be continuing as usual. In “Canadian soldiers have been carrying out Donald Trump’s orders”, a January 20 Economist article notes, “there may be hundreds of Canadian soldiers serving in the United States. Publicly available information suggests that several are deployed within units that have been carrying out some of Mr. Trump’s most controversial orders” in Venezuela, El Salvador and elsewhere.
In my 2020 book The House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy I have a section titled “Judge What I Say, Not What I Do”. It’s relevant to understanding Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum. It notes:
“Early in the Liberals reign Stéphane Dion presented ‘a guiding principle for Canada in the world’. During a major policy speech, the foreign minister claimed ‘responsible conviction’ was the principle motivating the government’s international policy. The ‘responsible conviction’ label was a way to distinguish the Liberal brand from the Conservatives. It supposedly also offered a moral-philosophical basis for signing off on the controversial light armoured vehicle sale to Saudi Arabia.
“When Chrystia Freeland took charge of foreign policy a year later, she replaced the ‘responsible conviction’ nomenclature with ‘international rules-based order’ (IRBO). On dozens of occasions Freeland, Trudeau and other Liberal officials referred to the IRBO, ‘international order based on rules’ or ‘international system based on rules’. The top stated ‘aim’ laid out in her major June 2017 foreign policy pronouncement was: ‘First, we will robustly support the rules-based international order, and all its institutions, and seek ways to strengthen and improve them.’ At the start of 2020 the Global Affairs website’s No. 1 priority was ‘revitalizing the rules-based international order.’
“But, while the IRBO rhetoric was clever branding, designed partly to distinguish the Liberals from Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ sloganeering, the Liberals repeatedly violated the IRBO and ignored efforts to strengthen it.”
IRBO was a rhetoric – echoed by US President Joe Biden – designed to sidestep international law. A leading promoter of the IRBO rhetoric in the Trudeau government was Freeland’s successor as foreign affairs minister François-Philippe Champagne. Yesterday Champagne excitedly tweeted, “Canada is back on the world stage. The New York Times just published the full transcript of PM Mark Carney’s speech at WEF 26.”
Once again, they talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk. Liberals are shameless.