This is also a day when we must, more than ever, raise our voices and our concerns about the future of the planet.  Just weeks ago, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million.  This is the highest concentration of CO2 in approximately three million years.   At that time, the planet was at least 2-3 degrees warmer and sea levels were 25 metres higher.  For this reason, scientists have been defining 400 ppm as a frightening and dangerous turning point for the planet – and those living on it.  Therefore, although the Green Party is happy to mark UN World Environment Day, we think every day can and must be used to make our planet more sustainable.  The time is now.

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According to the latest information released by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN, as of April 30th, 2013, Canada is sending 19 armed peacekeeping troops to the UN, 12 unarmed Military Experts on Mission (MEMs), and 99 police officers, for a personnel total of 130.

Canada’s peacekeeping troop contribution to the UN is now less than Mongolia (927 troops), Hungary (81 troops), and Togo (525 troops).

“Most Canadians remember with pride the time in the early 1990s when Canada sent more than 3,200 soldiers to peacekeeping missions around the world,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “I think they would be shocked and disappointed to learn that our peacekeeping reputation has been so compromised.”

At the same time, federal funding for peacekeeping institutions, such as the Pearson Center for Peacekeeping and the Peace Support Training Center in Kingston, which train peacekeepers from various countries for missions, has been slashed.

“Why is Canada all but ignoring the world’s need for peacekeepers?  Canadians have the will and the skill to serve,” said Ellen Michelson, Green Party Peace and Security advocate.   “The Green Party of Canada calls on the Harper Conservatives to reverse their poor record on contributing personnel to UN peacekeeping operations.”

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It should be clear that, since the Second World War, we have seen millions of lives lost in the Cold War through the proxy conflicts of the large super powers. Since 9/11, and the despicable attack on innocents at the World Trade Centre, we have, in the absence of the Cold War, faced security threats that are largely diffuse. Acts of terrorists are often met with a “war on terrorism,” but that is not a helpful term.

As former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, Paul Heinbecker, has pointed out, you cannot declare war on a noun. Security threats posed by terrorists are serious, but the approach of preparedness is more closely akin to a policing action than a full military response.

The largest likelihood is that Canada will no longer face another nation to nation conventional war. The security threats of the 21st century will be different from those of the last century.

In this new reality, Canada’s traditional strategy of a 3-D approach defence, diplomacy and development has the key elements. What we have lacked is a national conversation about the relative importance of each. Sadly, under Stephen Harper, the role of our diplomatic corps has been de-emphasized with embassies closing, diplomats treated as irrelevant, and Canada’s respect for multilateralism itself called into question. Our role as peacemakers, a role invented by former prime minister, Lester Pearson, has also fallen. While we continue to make financial donations to peacekeeping missions, we are no longer making significant contributions in terms of personnel.

Meanwhile, other military establishments around the world, from the U.S. Pentagon to the U.K. military, have identified the climate crisis as a serious security threat. Anthropogenic global warming is a clear and present danger. Global political instabilities will be exacerbated by crop losses, rising sea levels and millions of environmental refugees.

The capacity of our military to effectively respond may be more meaningfully employed through our emergency disaster response than through stealth fighter jets. Responsible preventative steps against this man-made security threat comes through reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an aggressive time-bound fashion.

Canada’s Green Party calls for the following urgent priorities for a realistic 21st century defence strategy:

• Realign our defence spending to increase our capacity and speed in delivering disaster assistance (e.g. through the DART Disaster Assistance Rapid Response Team) and our contributions to UN peacekeeping forces and missions, and decrease our contributions to NATO war efforts.
• Rebuild the broken linkages among Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT), National Defence and the Canadian Forces (DND/CF), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), to effectively and efficiently plan, organize, and execute our missions abroad.
• Play a lead role in establishing a standing UN Rapid Response Force with a mandate for peacekeeping and environmental restoration in both international crisis situations and domestic catastrophes like floods, earthquakes, storms and fires.
• Instruct Canadian embassies and consulates around the world to develop effective early disaster reconnaissance and assessment capabilities in order to speed up Canadian response times.
• Oppose the use of the United Nations Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as a military solution to force aid relief on countries that are rejecting it.
• Focus Canada’s development aid efforts and economic investment in the specific key areas that:
• Foster alternative fuels and energy sources that dramatically reduce the need to import oil and natural gas and further allow the growth of recipient nation independent and/or majority ownership of these sectors and/or businesses as they develop.
• Focus on agriculture sectors that provide for food sovereignty through both subsistence farming and domestic commercial farming methods that are in keeping with green environmentally sound and gender equality principles.
• Increase bilateral trade, where possible, to facilitate the export of value added products from small island economies.
• Support and strengthen cooperation with regional organizations to further the goal of regional independence and sovereignty.
• Advance the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and ensure its principles are at the core of Canadian foreign policy.
• Support the creation of a Department of Peace and Security.
• Review Canada’s membership in military alliances including NATO and NORAD to ensure they are meeting Canada’s priorities of diplomacy, development and defence.
• Press urgently for global nuclear disarmament and the conversion of military industries in Canada and worldwide into peaceful and restorative industries.
• Meet the urgent needs for aerial and nautical search and rescue with fixed wing planes and Coast Guard vessels and icebreakers.
• Ensure that Canadian veterans are treated with respect and that those requiring ongoing treatment and/or disability payments are ensured compensation at least as generous as that provided for civilian work place injuries.

These and other steps will assist in achieving true global peace and security.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

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The IDB was first celebrated on December 29 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on Biodiversity in 1993.  Canada played a leading role countering George Bush’s attempts to prevent it.

Just over ten years ago in 2002, the world’s leaders agreed to work on reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Sadly, they have not achieved their goal. In fact, the various factors that lead to such loss have, in too many cases, intensified.

The consequences of this global failure will impact on our water, food systems, health, environmental and physical security, including the severity of climate change, and even our planetary culture. As usual, the poor are and will continue to suffer the most as they try to eke out a living from an increasingly barren and hostile planet.

The Green Party calls on the Harper Conservatives to do much more to support, both financially and practically, the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. This is not a “green” issue; it concerns the future of our earth.

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For all its flaws, for all its failures, if we cannot get a multilateral solution with persistent pressure through the UN, through the Security Council, on Russia, on China and on those countries that have long-term relationships with Bashar al-Assad, we would not ourselves want to prop up someone like that, but now that the so-called rebel forces appear to be riddled with al Qaeda and we have the conflict spreading with potential destabilization with Israel’s rocket attack, we are in really serious trouble. Would he not agree with me that we need the United Nations as the primary vehicle for getting to political peacemaking solutions?

Wladyslaw Lizon: Mr. Speaker, Canada has been working with the members of the United Nations and with other countries. Of course, I agree we have to talk with Russia and China. We have to talk with everyone. Russia and China are not the only countries that Mr. al-Assad has good relations with, or historically speaking, has had relations with. For whatever reason, they seem to support him.

However, the democratic countries of this world should get together with the United Nations on bilateral agreements to make sure that everything that can be done is done to end the violence and the armed conflict. Continuing violence and fighting will not solve anything. War does not solve anything. It has to come to peace for a lasting solution to be achieved.

The post Emergency Debate – The Situation in Syria appeared first on Elizabeth May.

What does she think needs to happen in order for all the countries in the world to find a political solution? Which country is most important? I think Russia and perhaps China are the most important. What does my colleague think?

Ève Péclet: Mr. Speaker, considering the nature of this crisis, the Syrian crisis, I think the support of the entire international community is important.

We all agree that this conflict is affecting more than just one country. It is starting to affect neighbouring countries. I think it is crucial that the Security Council and the United Nations combine their efforts.

Whether it is Russia, China or another country, Canada has a role to play. Canada has always been a neutral country that forged ahead. I think this is vital to diplomatic relations. Regardless of the country we choose to put pressure on, we need to come up with a solution for long-term peace, in co-operation with the UN.

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“Soil is key to our ability to feed ourselves and survive on this planet,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands. “If we are going to provide for future generations, we simply cannot be reckless with this basic resource.”

May noted that the Conservatives’ secretive withdrawal from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD) was symptomatic of an exploitative and short-term attitude toward soil – and all natural resources.

“Canada should be using its knowledge and influence to work with the UN, providing cutting-edge research and solutions to protect and preserve threatened land areas,” said May.  “Instead, we are turning our backs on very vulnerable populations.”

Also, in Bill C-38 last year, the Conservatives quietly eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and with it the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA). The Act was designed to “… secure the rehabilitation of the drought and soil drifting areas in the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and to develop and promote within those areas, systems of farm practice, tree culture, water supply, land utilization and land settlement that will afford greater economic security…”

The Green Party encourages holistic, long-term, science-based soil and land management and permaculture, along with tree plantings and straw mulches to protect and feed crucial soil life.

“Canada should be stepping up with real solutions to help the world’s farmers make the most of the water they have,” said Green Party Agriculture Critic Kate Storey. “Holistic land management works on my farm by increasing water cycles, improving the soil, and preventing erosion.

“Across the world, holistic sustainable grazing with the provision of effective fencing materials and management education can bring degraded land back into food production and raise water tables, thus reversing desertification, building soil carbon, and reducing climate change by using healthy soil to capture and store carbon dioxide.”

The post Greens Mark Soil Conservation Week; Criticize UN Convention Withdrawal appeared first on Elizabeth May.

By what criteria is that spending more effective than pulling our weight in the world to confront drought and expanding deserts?

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Hon. Julian Fantino: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the criteria. That is making Canada’s assistance more effective and efficient so we can dedicate those resources to the people most in need.

We are supporting concrete measures to help developing countries deal with drought instead of paying for conferences, salaries, and bureaucrats. Our commitment is to help the poor in a tangible way. We are doing that. It is not about talk shops or travel.

The post International Cooperation appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I remember the struggle to develop a treaty to combat drought and encroaching deserts. Canada was one of the few countries in the lead to negotiate the treaty. I was not intimately involved, but I knew people who were. When it was signed in 1994, I was elated. Along with the conventions on climate and biodiversity, the treaty to combat drought addressed a global and pressing concern. It was clearly related to climate change, but was more regionally specific. And, although desertification is not a current threat to Canada, certainly drought is.

There had been no inkling or rumour that Stephen Harper wanted to exit another global environmental law. Given that the only treaty from which Canada has ever withdrawn, since 1867, was Kyoto, the cavalier way in which this news leaked out—posted on a Foreign Affairs website and noticed by Canadian Press— added to the shock. That we gave no notice to the secretariat for the Convention was further evidence of our contempt for both the United Nations and the threat posed by climate induced drought and desertification.

In Question Period the next day, Ralph Goodale (former Liberal finance minister and now only the MP for Wascana) posed an excellent question in which he linked other recent Harper administration decisions reducing the Prairies’ preparedness for drought. He charged ‘Maniacal front-line cuts have killed PFRA (the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration), which had world-class Canadian brainpower on soil and water conservation. Conservatives vandalized community pastures, the prairie tree farm and Experimental Lakes Area. Now Canada is the only country in the world sneaking out the back door on the UN Convention Against Drought.’

I was grateful Goodale noted cuts to programmes put in place after the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, as I have been trying to draw attention to them. What Harper has against hedgerows and water conservation in the Prairies is certainly a mystery that has angered Prairie farmers. The Prime Minister’s response was spun to create the impression that the convention on drought and desertification was akin to a poorly run charity, in which aid dollars were poorly spent: ‘This organization spends less than 20% of the funds that we send are actually spent on programming. (sic) The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. That is not an effective way to spend taxpayer money.’

‘This organization?’ The Prime Minister is speaking of a treaty, within which every other country on earth is making some level of contribution, financial and otherwise. How much were we spending? An astonishingly low pittance… $290,000/year. Admittedly that is a nice amount of money if you are collecting for a new school gymnasium, but it is chump change in the federal budget. We approve more than that routinely by unanimous consent for Parliamentary committee travel. Equated with those things the Prime Minister thinks are a good use of taxpayer funds, things like renting Pandas at $1 million/year, the drought treaty was a bargain.

Canada’s diplomatic corps is shocked. Former Ambassador to the United Nations, former Deputy Minister of National Defence and victim of a terrorist kidnapping in Mali, Robert Fowler, sent an email to the media. Calling our withdrawal from the treaty ‘a departure from global citizenship,’ here’s what he said:

‘It (the Harper administration) has taken climate-change denial, the abandonment of collective efforts to manage global crises and disregard the pain and suffering of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa (among many others) to quite a different level.’

Responding to Foreign Minister John Baird’s defence that Canada won’t ‘go along to get along,’ Fowler continued:

‘No, by jingo, we’re not going to go along to get along! Such vainglorious nose-thumbing at the international community’s efforts to tame a very present threat to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest and most desperate is nothing short of incomprehensible.’

Another former Ambassador to the United Nations, Paul Heinbecker, agreed that the move was both inexplicable and bound to confirm to the international community that Canada cared nothing for climate action, nor for the fate of Africa.

The UN itself was shocked. Noting that Canada will now be the only nation on earth not part of the convention, it, in typically understated diplomat-speak, called Canada’s decision ‘regrettable.’

It turns out our notice of intent was sent on January 14. The treaty requires only a 90-day period for full withdrawal so we exit the treaty on April 14, right in the middle of an important scientific review of the threat of desertification and drought, running April 9-19. ‘The next gathering of the scientific conference … is expected to deliver a major breakthrough by presenting the first ever cost-benefit analysis of desertification and sustainable land management,’ an UNCCD statement had commented, of the review and of Canada’s withdrawal.

‘Canada played crucial roles in both processes. Crucially, these processes have also moved the actions taken by parties to a result-based management approach where performance and impact are not only measured using indicators, but also assessed and monitored every two years.’

The rumours in Ottawa is that all our multilateral commitments are under review. I have heard well-connected folks express fear that we may withdraw from the United Nations Environment Programme and UNESCO. To block further erosion of our role in the world, we need to ensure that the reaction to this cutting and running from the problems of the world will not disappear as a one-day headline.

The post Canada Goes Rogue appeared first on Elizabeth May.

“Harper’s Conservatives have a clear bias against multilateral institutions, especially those dealing with environmental issues. Where will Harper’s isolationist agenda take us?” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

“Canadians should not be lured in thinking our loss of international influence will be compensated by budget cuts,” said May.

“As the Conservatives continue to burn up international goodwill in order to feed the U.N.-bashing faction of its voter support base, it is simultaneously eroding the valuable legacy of international goodwill that directly benefited every Canadian tourist and businessperson travelling abroad.  Amateur hour continues at the Prime Minister’s Office foreign affairs branch,” said Eric Walton, Green Critic for International Affairs.

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