QIO Volume 9 Issue 4

QUEEN’S INTERNATIONAL

OBSERVER

Volume 9 Issue 4

CANADAAND THE WORLD

Interview with Philippe Roseberry on the independence question in Kosovo vs Quebec

Also featuring:

Implications of cutting diplomatic ties in Iran

Canada’s reputation at the UN

Canadian stewardship of the Arctic

2 Queen’s International Observer

FROM THE EDITORDear Readers,

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of QIO, Volume 9. It is hard to believe that I took the reins of this magazine almost a year ago, filled with excitement, and also a little apprehension at the learning curve in front of me. I am so amazed at what the QIO team has been able to accomplish in the 2012/13 school year, and I owe a huge thank you to the QIO Executive, who have been integral to the success of Volume 9. From the summer mini-issue, to the launch of Issue 1 at Queen’s Foreign Policy Conference and Issue 2 at Queen’s Model Parliament, to the magazine’s circulation and increased vis-ibility on campus, this magazine could not have happened without the dedi-cation, enthusiasm, insight, and passion for world politics that the QIO Exec brought to each and every meeting and event. A huge thanks also goes to the President, VPs and core exec of the Queen’s International Affairs Associa-tion, who have been nothing but supportive of QIO’s growth and dynamism this year. QIAA adds so much to the Queen’s community, and I’m humbled to be part of such an amazing organization on campus.

This issue of QIO focuses on Canada’s place in world politics. Through articles by Dan Bodirsky, Idrees Ali and myself covering regions and states from Europe, to Iran, to China, to Deborah Chu’s piece examining Canada’s place in the United Nations, Canada’s identity as an actor in world politics is examined, analyzed, and critiqued. Furthermore, Brenna Owen’s article on the health and development of Canada’s Arctic offers a personal perspective on a topic that is often muted in Canada’s national political conversation. To wrap up the school year, members of the QIAA exec also gave their opinion on the most memorable events in international affairs in our Talking Heads column. No matter what your area of political interest, this issue should have something for everyone.

Most importantly, thank you to everyone who has submitted work, visit-ed our Facebook page, followed our Twitter account, come out to a launch event, or picked up the magazine on newsstands. A politically engaged au-dience is integral to fulfilling QIO’s mission of “Bringing Global Politics to Queen’s University”. To incoming Editor-in-Chief Morgan Tomalty, and the incoming Assistant Editors, Deborah Chu and Alexandre McGurk: good luck, have fun, and enjoy the ride; I’m so excited to read Volume 10!

Happy reading,

Stephanie RudykEditor-in-Chief Queen’s International Observer, Volume 9

3Volume 9 Issue 4

INSIDE THE ISSUE4

56

9

15

18

22

25

28

30

Letter from the Incoming Editor by Morgan Tomalty

Talking Heads: QIAA members reflect on a year in international politics

Post-9/11 Canadian Public Policy: Mobilising Fear to Justify Security by Matt Wei

The Arab Minority in Israel: Group-Specific Rights and a Palestinian State by Kris Yue

Canada’s Changing Role in the United Nations by Deborah Chu

Implications of Kosovo’s Independence the Quebec Sovereignty Question: An Interview with Philippe Roseberry by Stephanie Rudyk and Brenna Owen

Rise of the Midnight Sun: Critiquing Canada’s Stewardship of the Arctic by Brenna Owen

Canada’s China Strategy: No More Missed Opportunities by Stephanie Rudyk

Canada-Europe Free Trade: Boon or Bust? by Dan Bodirsky

Where Did They Go Wrong? A Closer Look at Canada’s Relations with Iran by Idrees Ali


Stephanie Rudyk Editor-in-ChiefNatasha Mukhtar Brenna Owen Assistant EditorsIdrees AliDaniel BodirskyDeborah Chu Staff WritersSara O’Sullivan Social Media DirectorWilliam Leung Layout Assistant

Dear Reader,

Greetings from the Queen’s International Observer editorial team for the 2013-2014 academic year! We would like to in-troduce ourselves as long-time readers of this magazine, and as readers, we feel confident in the direction QIO will take in order to further benefit the Queen’s community. We are incred-ibly excited and honoured by this opportunity, and although we have the biggest of big shoes to fill, we are hoping to make this upcoming year one of the best that QIO has had yet.

We are already overflowing with ideas about how to make in-ternational affairs more fun and accessible for Queen’s students. This year, our main objective is to make current political events more relatable across all faculties and areas of interest, from sci-ence to art history to commerce. One initiative we’re most ex-cited for is our upcoming art column, which will reach out into the vibrant artistic community here at Queen’s and discuss the in-extricable ties between contemporary art and politics (Ai Weiwei anyone?). Similarly, we hope to preserve the multifaceted nature of international affairs by introducing new sections dedicated to studying current events through a variety of perspectives, such as the effect of business and innovations in science on politi-cal events and decisions. On top of this, QIO hopes to provide you with both sides of the story like never before, by featuring a debate column that that will present a more nuanced analysis of the most contentious issues facing our world today. We are also hoping to make QIO more visually engaging by including political cartoons in the upcoming issues, which will explore the significance behind international events through a satirical lens.

But you won’t catch us whiling away the summertime sun! By the time you’re back at school in September, our website will have gotten a facelift, and the student body will have a new and innovative forum for constant and direct dialogue on what’s happening beyond our borders. With plenty of international dra-ma brewing on the horizon, we hope to bring a greater degree of international awareness to Queen’s than ever before.

It’s going to be an exhilarating year for QIO, and we hope you’ll be joining us for the ride!

Morgan Tomalty, Editor-in-Chief, Volume 10Deborah Chu and Alexander McGurk, Assistant Editors, Volume 10

FROM THE INCOMING EDITORS

Photo Credits:

Cover photo: Off the Coast of Baffin Island by Brenna OwenPg. 9,10,12: Israel/Palestine by Kris YuePg. 18: Portrait by Philippe RoseberryPg. 20: Vive le Quebec Libre by Stephanie RudykPg. 22-24: Baffin Island by Brenna OwenPg. 25: Shanghai Old Town by Stephanie RudykPg. 27: Hong Kong skyline by Stephanie Rudyk

5Volume 9 Issue 4

Talking HeadsQIAA members reflect on a year of world politics

What do you think was the most exciting, notable, or important world event that happened

this school year?

The most notable world event this year had to be the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. As the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years, it sent shockwaves through the Roman Catholic population around the world. Does it signal that the church is moving towards moder-nity? We can only speculate!

The death of Hugo Chavez was very significant to politics this school year. It’ll be interesting to see the future of Venezuela’s oil industry, its relationship with Iran and the US, and Latin America as a whole.

Wentsi Yeung, Sponsorship Director

Emily Hughes, Fundraising Director

The Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute was a very notable event this school year. It perfectly encapsulates the shifting geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific: an assertive Chinese foreign policy, rising national-ism, and challenge to a decades-old security framework. This isn’t just a one-off event; it’s a sign of times to come.

Daniel Bodirsky, Programming Director

The most notable development in international politics this year was Palestine’s successful bid as a non-member observer state at the United Nations. Seeing basically the entire world recognize the Palestinian people’s rightful claim to a state after 70 years of state-lessness was a touching and historic moment.

Kristoper Yue, QIAA Vice President


Following the attack of September 11, 2001, air-port security and screening increased exponentially to restore a sense of security and address further se-curity flaws within Canadian aviation. Two ma-jor pieces of legislation are presented in this paper, namely Bill C-42, or the Public Safety Act, and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA). Bill C-42’s first reading in the House of Commons occurred on November 22, 2001, indicating the ur-gency with which the government wanted to ensure that the events of 9/11 would not occur in Canada. Some of the major security flaws in Canadian avia-tion that Bill C-42 addressed included the creation of restricted areas not accessible without secure au-thorization, creating and maintaining a secure supply chain for the aircraft and aviation facilities, as well as a uniform screening process for goods and persons.

Regarding the creation of restricted areas and creating and maintaining a secure supply chain, Bill C-42 aimed to create a foundational security for aviation. In other words, legislators aimed to increase surveillance and heighten security to prevent threats from originating from within the infrastructure of aviation facilities. For example, at Toronto Pearson International, travellers and individuals not employed by airlines cannot enter the maintenance hangar for Air Canada crafts, and there

are certain doors in the airport that only employees of the establishment with the proper key card can access. While establishing a safe environment for travellers and staff, the Public Safety Act required the screening of all persons and goods, allowed for the seizure or detain-ment of goods in the course of screening, as well as the prohibition of individuals from entering the aircraft and aviation facility unless the individual agrees to screen-ing. These facets of the bill aimed to increase surveil-lance of the person and addressed the significant securi-ty gap revealed by the Air India bombings, which were attributed to a lack of screening of goods and cargo.

In addition, the Canadian government sought to address another problem demonstrated in the Air India bomb-ings: the lack of uniformity in the screening process. Under Bill C-38, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act or CATSA was established as a crown cor-poration tasked with the screening of persons and goods at aviation facilities. The transfer of screening of respon-sibilities from individual carriers to a unified organiza-tion meant that all travellers and goods were subject to the same surveillance and scrutiny. Both C-42 and C-38 legislations were a direct response to the heightened se-curity environment post-9/11. However, 9/11, and to a lesser degree the Air India bombing, were contingent events, or events that merely exacerbated security con-cerns that were already present in Canadian aviation.

Post-9/11 Canadian

Public Policy by Matt Wei

Mobilising fear to justify security

7Volume 9 Issue 4

These events perpetuated Ulrich Beck’s notion that modern society faces a new set of problems, where the distribution of risk dominates the traditional problem of the distribution of welfare. According to Beck, risks are the unintended consequences of rapid industrial modernization in capitalist society. However, while Beck’s risks originally took the form of pollution and environmental problems, his definition can be extended to the level of social systems. In other words, risk is not just external from the individual; it is a part of the indi-vidual, and inherent in the global structure of society. We constantly present potential risk to others, generat-ing fear. It is fear that drove man to exert control over the material; it is fear that drove humans to distribute risk among each other to reduce the potential cost to one individual or one group. It is fear that underlies the safety state and by extension, the surveillance society.

The safety state as defined by David Lyon seeks to “en-sure safety at a number of levels and to legitimate and rationalize other policies in the name of safety and secu-rity.” Safety in this sense simply refers to the “positive goal of policy in risk society: to avert risk in the cause of increased safety”. Certainly, one of the ways in which to view the development of the safety state is through the mechanism of fear. Referring back to Emile Durkheim, as humans seek to avert risk and be ‘safe’, we exert control over society. Through Durkheim’s notion of the sacred and the profane, it is clear that in the safety state, the notion of safety, or the pursuit of safety is sacred and all risks are profane. In the safety state, the goal is to ensure safety and legitimate policies to that end.

Surveillance is essential in order for the state to pur-sue ends that achieve the ultimate goal of safety. The development and evolution of the safety state is co-dependent on the evolution of the surveillance society. Lyon defines surveillance “as a routine and focused attention to personal details for the purposes of influ-ence, management, care and control.” Beginning in the 1970s with the rise of the computer age, surveillance saw a pronounced shift towards the use of computer systems. The use and increased reliance on comput-er systems like body and luggage scanners installed at airports across Canada is characteristic of the sur-veillance society and safety state. Driven by fear of another tragedy similar to 9/11, the state justified the use of sophisticated screening technology at airports.

This emphatic search for control, safety, and security is an attempt by the safety state to prevent further threats or incursions into its borders. In other words, “the safe-ty state is no longer concerned with counteracting the effects of the unequal society; rather its concern is to grapple with the unsafe.” In trying to grapple with the unsafe, security becomes defined in terms of who is worthy of being protected and who is not. This unequal distribution of safety can be linked to rising levels of public fear and anxiety, which has been heightened since 9/11. In a surveillance society that is heavily re-liant on computer systems, the security industry uses the mass media and public fear to normalise the use of surveillance and data collection on individuals in order to justify the introduction of new technologies to assure the public’s safety. Lucia Zedner highlights this con-cept, stating, “Security is a means to freedom, but un-less you feel insecure you will not feel free.” Feelings of insecurity are closely linked with fear and suspicion, which tend to mutually reinforce each other. In the post-9/11 atmosphere of suspicion and fear, policies were in-troduced that favoured some groups and discriminated against other groups. The introduction of the racial-ized, Muslim “other” is perhaps one of the most glar-ing examples of paranoia, fear and racial reductionism that resulted from the events of September 11th, 2001.

In this vein, one result of increasing surveillance is the production of coded categories through which indi-viduals and groups may be sorted. By the extracting, combining, and extrapolating the personal data of indi-viduals, it is possible to isolate individuals or groups as potential perpetrators of terrorist acts. Again, fear is a motivating factor in the conception of these coded cat-egories. To be sure, individuals engage in social sorting naturally, as we seek to make sense of the social world and find where each individual belongs. However, so-cial sorting in conjunction with notions of fear and suspicion, as implemented by government policies in reaction to 9/11, has profound far-reaching effects from airport screening and security to immigration policy.

Social sorting coupled with the notions of suspicion and fear has thus generated an ‘us and them’ mentality. In the post 9/11 world, the public internalizes the suspicion and fear that all persons who look Arabic or Muslim may be associated with religious or political extremism, a trend perpetuated by the state itself. Examples of this include signs posted in airports directing passengers to report


any activities or persons that appear to be suspicious, which widens the net of surveillance, but also gener-ates false positives of ordinary citizens misidentified as threats to airport security based on their race or ethnic-ity. Fear and suspicion mask the government’s surveil-lant gaze and encourage Canadians to identify threats on the basis of the appearance of an individual. The practice of surveillance, encouraged by the government, impacts the experience and construction of particular racialized groups in the US, Canada, and Europe. Not only does it create a shared experience of surveillance and exclusion, but it also affects immigration policy.

One notion that emerged from the post-9/11 discourse in America was that enforcement of immigration laws and the border controls were too lax, and that permis-sive practices allowed terrorists to enter the country easily. Howard Adelman argues that changes in Ca-nadian border and immigration policies occurred due to pressure from the US, and that “the attacks of Sep-tember 11th were largely orchestrated and carried out by a group of people who entered the United States legally, and had nothing to do with individuals at-tempting to enter Canada to win status as refugees”. Amendments to the Public Safety Act in response to these security concerns in the post-9/11 context have profound impacts for refugees and refugee claimants. Adelman refers to one amendment that states, “Refuge determination proceedings before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) could be suspended or terminat-ed if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the claimant is a terrorist, senior official of a government

engaged in terrorism or a war criminal.” The legisla-tion gives officials from the Government of Canada increased power to detain and terminate application processes on refugee claimants. In theory, the legisla-tion increases the difficulty for individuals with ter-rorist connections to immigrate to Canada. However, the problems of forged identity documents and mis-taken identity are not uncommon, and evaluator’s are vulnerable to bias or reliance on ethnic profiling and categorical suspicion, which can skew his or her per-ception in determining who may be a terrorist and who is not. There is distinct tension between the need for legitimate precaution against threats to security and the rights of genuine refugees seeking asylum. Legislation introduced after 9/11 created new challenges for appli-cants in their quest to prove that they are ‘safe citizens’. The legislation adopted in the wake of the attacks of 9/11 exemplifies the Canadian government’s attempt to re-establish the safety state and reaffirm security among its citizens. However, these legislations have surveillant implications including racial and ethnic sorting, which can generate misidentification of citizens as potential terrorist threats in Canadian airports. Further, new leg-islation had profound effects on the refugee process in Canada; asylum seekers face additional barriers, such as fulfilling the criteria to prove their identity in or-der to attain refugee status. The Canadian government now faces the challenge of continuing its humanitar-ian initiatives by accepting immigrants and refugees, while maintaining a secure state in the post-9/11 world.


this school year?

By far the most exciting world event that happened this year in my eyes was the resignation of the Pope. As a religious studies major I was overjoyed to see my area of study being brought to the forefront of discussion... for once! I felt as though the ridiculous amount of attention this event got showed how important religion still is to everyone regardless of how secular we may see ourselves.

Julia Kaplan, QMUNCH Director General

9Volume 9 Issue 4

The Arab Minority in Israel

Group-Specific Rights and a Palestinian State

by Kristopher Yue


“Our country is at war with our nation,” remarked an Arab local whom I met in Silwan, an Arab-populated neighbourhood located in East Jerusalem under Israeli administration. Recently, it has seen the arrival of an increasing number of Jewish families. Local fears of eventual demographic submersion via Jewish settle-ment in the area have intensified the perception of a “war” within Israel. How did such a peculiar situation arise in the first place? I argue that Israeli insistence on treating the plight of Arabs in Israel as a domestic issue, coupled with Palestinian calculations to set the group’s affairs aside in order to simplify peace negotiations, meant that the group’s voices were often neglected.

Over time, the voices of Arabs in Israeli society have become increasingly vocal and have attracted the at-tention of scholars and politicians. Some of the claims of Arabs in Israel, particularly those calling for equi-table access to power and resources, should be accom-modated, and proper institutional conditions for Pales-tinian Arab self-actualization established. Rather than the outright abandonment of Zionist principles and the creation of a bi-national state, a two-pronged solution must be pursued whereby a regimen of group-specific minority rights is instituted in Israel, along with the es-tablishment of a separate and viable Palestinian state.

Arabs in Israel occupy an uneasy position within Israeli society and within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general. In the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinian Arabs were separated by de facto borders between Israel and surrounding Arab countries. The

majority of Palestinian Arabs either fled voluntarily or were forced out by Israeli forces. Approximately 150,000 Arabs remained on the Israeli side of the 1948 armistice lines, and they suddenly became a national minority – representing 20% of the population – within the newly born state of Israel. The de facto partition-ing of Mandatory Palestine gave rise to the peculiar phenomenon whereby those who remained received Israeli citizenship, and those who left did not. Today, Arabs in Israel continue to identify as Palestinian, even though they simultaneously possess Israeli citizenship.

Stranded within a state designed for the Jewish nation, Palestinian Arabs in Israel were essentially subjected to military government from 1948-1966. Within this con-text, the Arab minority faced significant economic, so-cial, and political disadvantages. The young Israeli state was engaged in nation-building and, as a result, imple-mented policies that privileged the majority Jewish na-tion at the expense of the Arab minority. For example, half of all Arab-owned land within armistice lines was confiscated by the state, and legal ownership was sub-sequently transferred to the Jewish National Fund. Economically, Arabs generally earned less than half of the average Israeli income, and most were living in poverty. A majority of Arab villages lacked elec-tricity, water, and other basic provisions. Zionism’s racial exclusivity and strong inter-group resentment meant that the Palestinian Arab minority faced con-siderable social discrimination. As is typical among cases of majority-minority relations marked by power

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inequalities, American ambassador Walworth Bar-bour observed “profound disparity” and “deliberate discrimination” against Arabs in Israel. These ob-servations hold true today, albeit in less stark terms.

Arab parties and politicians were – and continue to be – customarily excluded from partaking in governing coalitions. Likewise, Arabs made little effort to allow Jewish penetration into their own cultural spaces, insist-ing on the maintenance of a distinct Palestinian cultural sphere. This led to the formation of essentially parallel societies, where few people engaged meaningfully with the other national group. After the end of martial law in 1966, formal legal equality was extended towards Pales-tinian Arabs, although this did not bring an end to the di-chotomous nature of inter-group relations within Israel.

The existence of a sizeable minority of Palestinian Arabs within Israel adds an interesting dynamic to the broad-er Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, the conflict has often been recast in terms of two nations fighting on either side of the 1967 borders. The polarized tensions embodied in Jewish-Palestinian relations within Israeli politics chal-lenge this neat separation of the conflict along geograph-ical lines. The marginalization of Palestinian Arabs within Israeli society is merely a genetic permutation of the more familiar ethno-national conflict experienced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). Yet, the po-litical strategies adopted by both Israeli and Palestinian political leadership have tended to obscure this issue.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), recog-nized as the “sole legitimate representative of the Pales-tinian people”, failed to champion the cause of the Arab minority in Israel during the Oslo peace process Sens-ing the complexity of including Arab minority demands in peace negotiations, the PLO decided to exclude the issue from its agenda. These pragmatic considerations have given rise to a situation in which the PLO cham-pions only the aspirations of a portion of Palestinians. Interestingly, official Palestinian discourse advocates for the rights of refugees in the WBGS and those liv-ing outside the borders of Mandatory Palestine, yet the claims of Palestinian Arabs living inside 1967 borders on the Israeli side are absent in official discourse. The PLO’s seemingly contradictory approach must be un-derstood in light of Israeli thinking towards this issue.

The plight of the Arab minority has historically been treated by Israeli leadership as a domestic issue. The state of Israel has, since its founding, been premised upon Zionist principles, which define the Jewish nation as the central identity of the state. As such, under the right of self-determination, the Jewish majority has the power to assert its own prerogative of determining an ap-propriate relationship with minority groups in the polity.

In the past, there was also a shared belief among Is-raeli leaders that modernization and integration would eventually neutralize the claims of the Palestinian Arab minority. Over time, Arabs in Israel have slowly ad-opted Israeli lifestyles, and modernized in occupational terms. Upon ending martial law in 1966, Israel offered the full slate of individual citizenship rights to Pales-tinian Arabs in Israel and the use of Arabic, one of the official languages of Israel, became more widespread in the 1990s. However, legal equality – in the context of a state inspired by Jewish nationalism – coexisted with de facto economic, political, and social discrimination as Palestinian Arabs negotiated life within a state which defined them as belonging “outside” the core nation.

Israeli insistence on dealing with the Arab minority as a domestic problem can be analyzed with reference to several narratives that inform Zionist thinking. First, there is a fear that Palestinian Arabs will eventually outnumber Jews living in Israel, and directly threaten the Jewish character of the state. For this reason, Is-raeli leaders have diligently resisted Arab migra-tion into Israel through denying refugees the right to return, and through upholding an ethnically restric-tive immigration policy. Second, some Israelis fear that the fast growing Arab minority is being used as a springboard to undermine the Jewish state inter-nally. Keeping the Arab minority under domestic po-litical control minimizes a degree of uncertainty in the future of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state. Finally, there exists a perception that compromises to Pal-estinian demands are inherently forms of surrender.

Neglect on behalf of both Palestinian and Israeli lead-ership has encouraged Arabs in Israel to mobilize po-litically through the establishment of Arab political parties and civic organizations. The minority group’s leaders have vociferously advocated for structural changes in the politics of Israel, and have called for a bi-national one-state solution to end the overarching


Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Vision Documents, for example, call for state recognition of Palestin-ian Arabs as the indigenous peoples of the land, and for the abandonment of exclusivist Zionist principles. Liberal democratic states are categorically committed to ensuring equality for all citizens. As Kymlicka ar-gues, for a liberal democracy to fulfill this promise, a system of universal individual rights must be supple-mented by group-specific rights aimed at rectifying structural disadvantages. Ethnic and national minority groups frequently encounter obstacles that members of the majority do not, and ought to be accorded with group-specific protections in order to accrue equitable access to power and resources. Merely offering an un-differentiated set of individual rights is insufficient in addressing systematic power disadvantages faced by minority groups in “the cultural marketplace.” These lessons can be fruitfully applied to the Israeli case. Every state, especially those expressing a majority group’s nationalist ideology, has to decide on a set of state symbols in order to bring coherence to the pol-ity. The Israeli state’s privileging of Jewish national symbols and stories directly clashes with the needs and identities of minority groups. The celebration of Inde-pendence Day, for example, coincides with the Pales-tinian commemoration of al-Nakba (the catastrophe). Here, the Jewish narrative of triumph is promoted at the expense of the Palestinian narrative of suffering.An array of group-specific rights, including language and education rights, guaranteed legislative seats in the Knes-set and proportional allocation of state resources, can be justified on the grounds of remedying structural disad-vantages in the polity. Dealing with the Arab minority’s

claims to equitable access gains democratic significance once we realize that Zionist politics involve “recogniz-ing, accommodating, and supporting” the aspirations of the majority Jewish nation, and simultaneously cre-ate “ideological barriers” to Palestinian Arab mobility. Writing on Eastern European democracies, Kym-licka observes that the democratic merits of minority claims are often ignored when treatment of minorities is conceived of as a matter of national security. In such cases, he suggests that dialogue on majority-minority relations is often intertwined with the discourse of “securitization.” In the Israeli case, dialogue on ma-jority-minority relations has been dominated by se-curitization concerns, allowing right-wing nationalist forces to conveniently sidestep the democratic merit of minority group claims. This has made the task of ask-ing more searching questions about Jewish democracy difficult, as hardliners hide behind appeals to security. Understanding the role played by the securitization dis-course in Israel opens the discussion to ways in which the pervasive influence of security concerns can be di-minished. Among many other factors, “de-securitiza-tion” requires two fundamental shifts in majority atti-tudes: first, it requires the majority group to eschew the belief that granting comprehensive group-specific rights to minority groups would necessarily entail an unravel-ling of the political fabric of the nation-state and sec-ond, a shift away from seeing Arabs in Israel as disloyal agents out to undermine the state from within is needed. Some members of the majority nation view Arabs in Israel as agents fighting in the domestic “Israeli front” within a broader two-front war for an eventual Pales-

13Volume 9 Issue 4

tinian victory over Zionism. It must be noted, how-ever, that such views are not unfounded. Palestinian voices have claimed that demographic realities will eventually lead to a de facto situation in which two Palestinian-majority states are found side by side, al-lowing Arabs to reclaim control over all of historic Palestine. In a sense, then, the prospects of bypass-ing the securitization discourse depend on the ac-tions and rhetoric of Palestinian Arabs themselves. Thus far, this article has approached equality as un-derstood in terms of access to power and resourc-es. Feminist theorists have criticized this approach for its over-emphasis on distribution. According to Young, relations of domination can hinder the con-ditions for minorities to achieve self-actualization. Applied to the present case, Palestinian Arabs in Is-rael have generally been pushed into a disadvan-taged sociopolitical space as a result of their ethnicity.

However, the accompanying expectation to cre-ate a viable sociopolitical space in Israel for Pal-estinian Arab self-actualization is perhaps too onerous of an expectation the Jewish state. Nation-states structurally privilege a particular na-tional group at the expense of others, and it is unclear whether the logic of nationalism can co-exist with such lofty standards. Yet, at the same time, Palestin-ian Arabs have a reasonable claim to a space that al-lows for the realization of Palestinian aspirations.

These considerations point to the pressing nature of es-tablishing a durable and viable Palestinian state. Strong Palestinian institutions would offer conditions for self-

actualization, while Arabs in Israel who do not find the regimen of group-specific rights to be sufficient would have the choice to migrate to a culturally viable Pales-tinian state across the border. It would not be morally in-cumbent, but normatively appealing, for Israel to invest in strengthening Palestinian institutions. This would not be inconceivable given that both Israeli and Pales-tinian leadership is committed, in principle, to seeing this goal become reality once peace is finally created. In summary, the peculiar situation of the Arabs in Israel should be understood as a manifestation of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Recast under the lens of majority-minority relations, inter-group inequalities revealed the racial underpinnings of Zionist principles and the exclusivist logic of state-centred nationalism. A combination of Palestinian pragmatism and Israeli insistence on treating the plight of the Arab minority as a domestic issue gave rise to increasingly vocal claims for minority rights. These claims eventually became critiques of Israel as a Jewish state, and have inspired some Arab leaders to call for the creation of a single bi-national state over all of Mandatory Palestine as a solution to the overarching conflict. I have argued for a two-pronged solution based on philosophical grounds, whereby i) a set of group-specific minority rights aimed at reducing structural imbalances in majority-minority relations is instituted in Israel, and ii) a separate and viable Palestinian state is established alongside Is-raeli borders. The potential role of the securitization discourse in upsetting these efforts, however, implies that both nation groups will have to explore questions of their own identities, narratives, fears, and motiva-tions before a comprehensive solution can be achieved.

John Woosdide, QIAA Incoming VP


this school year?

The most exciting story of the past school year was Dennis Rod-man visiting North Korea. I think this is the most exciting (or at the very least the most jokes) news story of the year because it captures the ridiculousness that international affairs sometimes is. After all, who would have thought Rodman would be the breakout diplomacy star of 2013?

15Volume 9 Issue 4

The year is 1957: Lester B. Pearson, the Canadian Secretary of External Affairs, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for defusing the Suez Crisis through the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force. With Cold War tensions diminishing once more, the outbreak of yet another global war has been narrowly avoided. The sense of relief felt across the world is palpable.

It was for this very reason that the United Na-tions – the world’s largest and foremost interna-tional diplomatic organization – was founded after the Second World War. With the mandate of foster-ing dialogue and cooperation between countries, the UN has expanded to 193 member states in 2011.

Canada quickly gained a reputation as one of the most active and progressive members of the UN. Having es-tablished its prestige during the war, particularly for its role in D-Day and the liberation of the Netherlands, Can-ada led the charge in several post-war programs, such as a campaign to ban land mines, the formation of the International Criminal Court, and the ‘Right to Protect’ doctrine. During a time when many former powers were still struggling to recover from the ravages of WWII, Canada’s active role in development and peacekeeping through the latter half of the 20th century solidified the country’s reputation as a new key player in the post-war era. Pearson’s acceptance of the Nobel prize, therefore, did not so much usher in, but rather affirmed Canada’s new position of leadership on the international stage.

Fast forward more than half a century, and the story is a very different one. Since the Conservative Party’s

rise to power under Stephen Harper, relations between Canada and the UN have stagnated. What was once a cohesive relationship has deteriorated into Cana-dian diplomats staging walk-outs from UN programs, and a pivoting of foreign aid away from the UN.

The first overt blow came in 2010, when Canada lost its bid for a seat on the Security Council. Having success-fully held its seat since the formation of the UN, this loss of status was of particular humiliation for the Harp-er Government, and was widely interpreted as a rebuke by the international community. Critics cite Canada’s unflinching support for Israel as having cost it dearly in the voting process, particularly among voting members from Arab countries. Others viewed the loss as inevita-ble, in light of Canada’s diminishing involvement in the United Nations. Moreover, Harper had made no secret of his traditionally conservative doubts regarding the UN’s purpose and value; he has addressed the UN General Assembly only twice since becoming Prime Minister, and opted to accept a different award for statesmanship in New York instead of speaking at the annual open-ing of the General Assembly with other state leaders.

Many believed that, with a minority government in power, it was only natural that foreign policy took a backseat to domestic affairs. Yet even after winning a majority in the 2011 federal election, relations between the Harper’s Conservative government and the UN have worsened, descending into a war-of-words. Last summer, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized Quebec’s Bill 78, which placed restrictions on public demonstrations in response to student protests

Canada’s Changing Role in the

United Nationsby Deborah Chu

over a rise in tuition. The government quickly leapt to Quebec’s defence, arguing that the provincial govern-ment had the right to pass its own laws in a democ-racy. Weeks later, the UN Committee Against Torture admonished Ottawa for delaying the approval of Omar Khadr’s request to serve out his sentence in Canada, and accused the government of complicity in human rights violations against three Arab-Canadian men detained in Syria after 9/11. The government, however, has made clear its unwillingness to be cowed. A spokesman for Foreign Minister John Baird reiterated the government’s “principled approach” to foreign policy in early 2013, stating that “under [the Harper] government, Canada no longer panders to every dictator with a vote at the UN.” The most recent flurry of blows was exchanged in early March 2013. At a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right-to-food, Oliver de Schutter, condemned Ottawa for not doing its duty in alleviating domestic poverty and hunger. Despite the fact that Canada weathered the global economic downturn relatively well com-pared to other developed states, de Schutter’s 21-page report states that the number of Canadian households living in “food insecurity” has risen 8.2 percent from 2008 to 2011, meaning 1 in 10 families are having dif-ficulty meeting their basic food needs. The report criti-cizes Ottawa’s failure to create a better food strategy

to fight hunger amongst the First Nations peoples, the dismantling of the National Council on Welfare and the long-form census, as well as its negligent handling of funds meant to be dedicated to provincially-adminis-tered social services. Moreover, de Schutter’s report alleges that ongoing Canada-EU free trade negotia-tions may have a negative impact on local markets and initiatives to improve food and nutrition standards. The report states, “The special rapporteur is concerned about the growing gap between Canada’s international human rights commitments and their implementation domestically.” Further, “Canada… is only credible when it preaches human rights to others if it is irreproachable itself.” Though the Harper Government claims the re-port “ignored facts” in pursuit of its “one-sided bias,” de Schutter has steadfastly maintained its accuracy and claims it will play a role in the UN’s overview of Can-ada’s international and human rights reputation. Some indication of this can be seen in Canada’s slip from the top-ten position in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Index – a far cry from the 1990s, when the country held first place for much of the decade. These tensions are only the latest in a long line of in-cidents that have signalled Canada’s growing shift away from the UN and its principles. In 2011, Canada incited much international and domestic indignation

Queen’s International Observer16

17Volume 9 Issue 4

when it withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an inter-national agreement that emerged from the United Na-tions Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. Environment Minister Peter Kent alleged that staying in Kyoto would have forced Canada to spend $14 billion buying carbon credits abroad, because Canada had not managed to meet the initial targets set in 2005. Prime Minister Harper went on to argue that an environmental treaty which did not include the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters – China and the United States – would not only be ineffective in reducing global emissions, but would ultimately hurt Canada’s competitiveness in the global market. This realignment in Canada’s participation in interna-tional bodies can also be seen in our country’s peace-keeping operations. Though Canada continues to fash-ion themselves as a peacekeeping country, this is simply no longer the case. Once considered the founder and leader of United Nations peacekeeping, Canada’s direct involvement in missions has been in sharp decline since 1995. In the 2006 ranking of UN peacekeeping, Canada placed 51st , contributing just 130 peacekeepers to a total deployment of over 70,000. A report in 2012, pub-lished by the International Peace Institute, revealed that the top direct contributors to UN missions are now “de-veloping” countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Ban-gladesh. Canada’s participation between the years 2000 and 2010 has largely been through monetary backing or “token” contributions of less than 40 personnel. As recently as March 14th, Harper promised to con-tribute a C-17 military transport to a UN peacekeep-

ing mission to Mali. His aides, however, have di-vulged that even this contribution would be limited to “weeks, not months,” and that Harper ultimately remains reluctant to send peacekeepers and increase Canada’s involvement in peacekeeping missions.

This is not to say that Canada has ceased foreign aid contributions entirely. The government has maintained its contributions to other Western-helmed operations such as NATO, and continues to be active in Afghani-stan and Haiti. This suggests that the government, in scaling back Canada’s international involvement, has chosen to focus its contributions more so on re-gional organizations and unilateral state development. Yet the belligerent state of relations between Canada and the UN remains troubling. In an age of intensify-ing globalization, it is imperative that Canada is able to cooperate on an international level, especially as emerging markets begin opening in Asia and Africa.

The world’s respect for Canada as a former champion for human rights is almost dried up, and to gain a rep-utation for introversion and hostile diplomacy would be more harmful to the country than ever before in an era when interdependence is unavoidable. Canada remains a relatively prosperous nation, and one with much to offer. The question is whether the Government of Canada will take a backseat on important issues of the day, or if it will attempt to reclaim the country’s former prominence on the international stage, either within or without the framework of the United Nations.

Brenna Owen, QIO Assistant Editor


this school year?

In hearing from others what they think is the most notable or ex-citing world event this school year, I was surprised to find that I seem to be the first person to mention rising tensions between North and South Korea. Recently, North Korea ended peace pacts with South Korea, following the announcement of new UN sanc-tions against North Korean nuclear testing. I think the possibility of military conflict is very real, and if this is the case it will have ramifications for international affairs, foreign policy and diploma-cy the world over.


After a decade of administration by the United Nations, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in Febru-ary 2008, sparking both recognition and protest inter-nationally. The announcement marked the first time the issue of unilateral declaration was brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which issued the advisory opinion that the declaration did not violate international law or UN Resolution 1244, which sug-gested that Kosovo should remain in Serbia. The deci-sion stirred some controversy in Canada regarding the case of Quebec and Francophone calls for sovereignty. Ultimately, however, if independence is to be achieved in Quebec it will be on the basis of markedly different claims than those used and accepted by the internation-al community in Kosovo.

QIO: How did the International Court of Justice re-spond to Kosovo’s declaration of independence?

Philippe Roseberry: The court took two years to issue an advisory note that came out in July 2010, in which they declared that Kosovo’s independence is not con-trary to any established principle of international law. It’s not legal, but it is not illegal. There is nothing that opposes it. You may have heard of Resolution 1244, which was the UN Security Council’s resolution on Kosovo. The resolution was that Kosovo should stay part of Serbia, under trusteeship. So Serbia and the people who opposed [Kosovo’s independence] say that there was nothing in 1244 that allowed Kosovo to de-clare sovereignty [despite the ICJ’s remarks].

QIO: What was the position of the Government of Canada on this matter? Did it release official state-ments at the time or have there been subsequent re-actions?

PR: The global tally is 98 states that recognize Koso-vo. This includes the U.S., France, the U.K. and Tur-key, which are big players in the region and globally. Canada waited about two months before issuing [its recognition]. From what I saw in reports and internal documents, the government had some unease about whether it should recognize Kosovo right away. A lot of political staff asked the government to provide an official line on the conflict, in case they were asked by journalists “Does this create a precedent for Quebec? Can Quebec nationalists use this as an argument in fa-vour of a self-declaration of independence in the case of referendum?”

Implications of

Kosovo’s Independence on the

Quebec Sovereignty Question An Interview with Philippe Roseberry

by Brenna Owen and Stephanie Rudyk

19Volume 9 Issue 4

There were also questions about Canada’s foreign policy in the region; does Canada, in principle, recog-nize a unilateral declaration of independence? What is Canada’s take on the whole issue of the former Yugo-slavia? Canada was a significant player in the region up until 1999, and Jean Chrétien was quite influential in crafting the NATO resolution that decided to go into Kosovo, so there was a mix of concerns. There was also a more local… Canadian national affairs aspect, which concerned Quebec, and the worry that if the fed-eral government appeared to support unilateral decla-ration of independence in principle, then maybe Parti Québécois politicians would use that [to justify seces-sion of Quebec]. But my general opinion is that it is still a relatively mild concern… Generally the comparison between the Kosovo and Quebec cases has been blown out of proportion… The two cases are so different, so distant on most dynamics…

QIO: On that note, is it a real possibility that Quebec could shirk the Clarity Act a piece of federal legisla-tion that outlines the proper conditions for holding a referendum on secession of a province) and use the case of Kosovo to justify claims for independence, or is that totally unrealistic?

PR: The consensus in Quebec among the political elite is that the Clarity Act is something that was im-posed… The Liberal Party and the Parti Quebecois are quite okay with the idea that it is a 50+1 vote. Those are the internal parameters of the debate in Quebec. In Ottawa it’s a different story. The federal government favours qualified majority, the Clarity Act, and consul-tation with all of Canada as to the proper conditions to consider Quebec’s desire for independence. The issue is that the philosophical basis of the claim for indepen-dence in Quebec, and for that matter in Catalonia, the

Basque country, and Northern Ireland, is in a catego-ry quite distinct from that of Kosovo. The arguments that were used in Kosovo are completely different. In the case of Quebec and most ethno-national groups of the developed world, the claim is generally a mix of two things: one is that there’s a historical and cultural legacy of different language and different culture in a given territory – this is a classic nationalist argument about culture. Then there is also the idea that Quebec can separate… if 50+1 percent of the population desires to do so in a true referendum. This is an argument based on people power and direct democratic theory. Both of these principles are referred to as primary right theo-ries, or the idea that people and groups have a primary right to declare their independence by way of referen-dum as long it is legal, free and fair, and as long as they have an ethno-national basis for doing so.

The argument used in Kosovo by the international com-munity, and the one that was recognized by the ICJ, is that Kosovo is free to separate because there have been massive human rights violations, ethnic conflict and at-tempts at major ethnic cleansing by the Serbian state. In more scholarly terms it’s referred to… as remedial right theory – the idea that if a group, which is defined ethno-culturally, is a victim of significant violence that threat-ens its survival, then it has a right to remedial seces-sion. Kosovars themselves say that they qualify on all grounds; they have had a referendum, they are an ethno-national group, they have had their autonomy removed by the Serbian government in the late 1980s, they’ve lost their status as a province, and finally they’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of violence. More than 60 percent of the population was sent abroad as refugees, and hundreds of thousands were killed. That means that they have a basis in remedial right to secession.


QIO: There is a 2010 article in the Globe and Mail that suggests that Quebec separatists may “calcu-late that their energies are better directed at lob-bying for recognition from individual nations than trying to comply with the Clarity Act.” Do you have any thoughts on that statement?

PR: Well it’s the idea that you can claim recognition (either internal autonomy or international recognition) by following the legal constitutional order of the coun-try, but also by seeking outside, third-party support. After the 1995 referendum, but before the Clarity Act was issued, the Supreme Court looked first at Canadian constitutional principles and also at international legal principles, and determined that there is nothing in inter-national law that explicitly prevents unilateral declara-tions of secession, but it did not want to consider this because the Canadian constitution does have something to say about this matter. Nevertheless, outside support is still seen by some as a way to shore up one's claim to autonomy or independence. What the case of Koso-vo shows is that it’s quite important to have bilateral backing by the people who do the heavy lifting in the international sense. For example, having the U.S. on board, France on board, having the European Union on board. Although, for Kosovo, the European Union is somewhat divided; the countries that have significant minorities like Spain or Romania have not recognized Kosovo. They might do it in the future under pressure, but they feel that this will set a precedent for them

QIO: In your article in le devoir you said that be-cause Kosovo had experienced violent oppression, and human and political injustices, that was the basis for being able to unilaterally declare indepen-

dence. In that way, does that leave Quebec with no grounds to seek autonomy from Canada?

PR: In terms of possible historical injustices that Que-bec could claim, if you look far enough back in history, some would say that the British army used repression against French Canadians, or that a few people were shot during the Conscription Crisis of WWI. Overall though, the historical injustice argument has a weak historical basis [in Quebec] as grounds for a unilateral declaration of secession. Second, what the Kosovo case shows in relation to Quebec is that the threshold for violence before the international community accepts independence is extremely high. It needs to be all-out ethnic cleansing, civil war; they don’t recognize lesser claims of simple repression. Kosovo was not granted independence in the 1990s even though it was under-going a vicious repressive campaign from Serbia, but after the use of ethnic cleansing in 1998-1999, the in-ternational community felt that it had to grant special status to Kosovo. So, historical injustices have to be recent, they have to be extreme, and even then it’s pret-ty rare that the international community will grant that right. Quebec is obviously not in that league and no one is claiming that the prime basis for independence in Quebec is remedial. Interestingly, no Quebec politician is running a campaign on the idea that Quebec should [separate] based on suffered injustice. It’s really based on this idea of primary right, and not on the idea of remedial right.

QIO: Can you comment on the fact that Quebec has its own consulates abroad, as well as a Ministry of International Relations? Is this an indication that Quebec is seeking more bilateral diplomatic rela-tions with countries, or are these institutions merely

21Volume 9 Issue 4

trade and tourism offices that have little political significance.

PR: Quebec diplomacy is recognized as one of the most elaborate non-sovereign state diplomatic services, and it is clearly different in terms of objectives from say the Alberta commercial mission in Washington and New York. Although, after an early period in the 1980s and early 1990s when there were major fights with the federal government over whether this was a symbol of Quebec breaking away from Canada, the debate has kind of cooled down. Even the Parti Quebecois lim-its its representation abroad to things that fall within Quebec’s jurisdiction… such as immigration, which has been devolved to Quebec by the federal govern-ment. [Quebec] has a big immigration office in Paris for North Africa and France, it has one in Mexico for Latin America. Its offices are also in charge of commercial relations and cultural relations. In Paris, [the Quebec consulate] compares to the Canadian embassy in terms of activity, although it remains within the limits of pro-vincial jurisdiction. [These powers] have been offered and devolved to Quebec by the federal government and in other cases it’s the constitution that defines the juris-diction. Quebec uses them fully, to the extent it can in order to help present itself as a player internationally; Quebec has lobbied for a seat at UNESCO, and Quebec has a seat at the Francophonie, jointly with Canada. So, consulates abroad are definitely a nation-building tool for Quebec. But now the federal government has ac-cepted it and they live in harmony, I would say.

QIO: Do you have any other comments on the issue on Quebec and Kosovo that you’d like to add?

PR: I would really like to stress the different claims that each make to sovereignty. With regards to Kosovo, the idea that independence is granted to a state because it’s suffered mass violence and human rights violations or genocide is so new, and the bar has been set so high in terms of what qualifies, that its begs the question, did the U.S. and Europe recognize Kosovo really because they believe that story of mass violence, or just because Kosovo is a hot-button issue that they are responsible for in terms of offering international support. After ten years [of conflict] and no idea what to do with Kosovo on the part of Western powers, it was kind of inevitable that Kosovo would be independent. Serbia had no pres-ence anymore (there are about 200,000 Serbs in Kosovo out of a population of 2 million), there was no Serbian police presence for ten years, and there was no Serbi-an administration except in northern Kosovo. Thus, in practice, Kosovo was de facto independent. The inter-national community merely sought to find a convincing story to justify recognizing Kosovo without opening a Pandora’s box of similar claims elsewhere. And by sim-ilar claims, what they had in mind was Eastern Europe, it’s not really North America or Western Europe they were concerned about. Therefore, it’s not that [the in-ternational community] is creating a new international principle to recognize states. The Political violence and repression argument was a convenient way to recognize Kosovo, and speaks about the power of the argument that when you’ve suffered so much you need something in return, you need compensation. It makes it very dif-ficult for any other claimant to use that same idea [to support its own sovereignty claims], because very few territories have been as hard hit as Kosovo.

Sarah Budd, Marketing Director


this school year?

Over the course of the 2012-13 academic year, leadership changes have been the most significant international development. The re-election of Barack Obama, the assumption of power in North Korea by Kim Jong-un, and the recent election of the new and seemingly liberal Pope Francis I, will determine the direction of global politics in the years to come. Many other international elections have ushered in new and old faces this year, with the entry of socialist Hollande in France, the return of Putin as president in Russia, as well as the election of Morsi in Egypt.


Arctic waters, and the political debate surrounding them, are heating up; the eyes of many countries are focused on the Arctic as an untapped source for energy exploration and extraction. This past summer, Ottawa placed the drilling rights to an area of Arctic waters about half the size of Lake Ontario up for auction to en-ergy companies. Opening the Arctic to poorly regulated drilling perpetuates the cycle of non-renewable energy consumption that is currently causing Arctic sea ice to melt at an unprecedented rate.

In August 2008 I travelled to the Canadian Arctic with the Gatineau-based organization Students On Ice, a unique organization that offers youth the opportunity to visit the poles with polar educators and like-minded students from around the world. As a result of my ex-perience, issues of environmental and cultural health in Inuit communities resonate strongly with me. During my trip I was emotionally and intellectually affected by the people and landscape of Canada’s North, and I am dismayed that the health of the Arctic and its people continues to take a backseat to opportunities for eco-nomic and resource development by the public and pri-vate sectors.

The landscape of Baffin Island in Eastern Nunavut is the most pristine I have ever seen. Icebergs line the horizon line like grey sails and the cold, steely rock walls of fjords jut into the sky while glacial ice creaks in their crevices. This seemingly untouched landscape is at once desolate and full of energy. Powerful though the Arctic landscape is, however, closer examination of

its topography, flora and fauna, reveal the effects of cli-mate change.

My Inuit friend Johnny Issaluk, who was also the first indigenous recipient of the Queen Elizabeth the 2nd Diamond Jubilee Medal, awarded to Canadians who have made significant contributions to the country, told me in July 2012, “In ten years you can see a drastic dif-ference; the last couple of years have been even more drastic. Our ice normally starts forming mid-Novem-ber, and last year it started forming in January.” Johnny also described how his father and Inuit elders taught him from a young age how to read ice conditions to determine the ice’s safety. “Now, last winter,” Johnny said, “it looks the same but it is softer, it breaks easier; experienced hunters are going through the ice with their snowmobiles.”

Top Canadian Arctic scientists have also predicted that the permanent ice cover of the Arctic Ocean will melt in less than twenty years, an accelerating trend that is sure to have consequences not only for indigenous people in the North, but also for international shipping and trade routes. However, while warmer summer tem-peratures are opening up new routes, existing routes are becoming more dangerous as ancient ice breaks away from massive sheets and begins to move throughout the Arctic Ocean.

In addition to being a critical realm for the study of cli-mate change, the Arctic is a significant region in terms of potential sovereignty disputes between Arctic states.

Rise of the Midnight Sun

by Brenna Owen

Critiquing Canada’s Stewardship of the Arctic

23Volume 9 Issue 4

Major powers including Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden and a number of other Scandinavian states all have a direct stake in the future of the Arc-tic. These stakeholders are all members of the Arctic Council, the primary intergovernmental forum through which Arctic states interact and cooperate on regional issues. Each of these states has expressed different mo-tivations for involving itself in the region.

The United States sees the Arctic primarily in terms of national security, due to its proximity to historical adversary Russia, as well as economic development. Norway has emphasized the importance of the active participation of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic in the activities of the Arctic Council, while Finland oper-ates several biological research stations and has a great deal of scientific expertise to offer in the event of in-ternational cooperation in the region. Meanwhile, the Canadian Arctic encompasses about 40 percent of the country’s total land mass and, significantly, two-thirds of its coastline, apparently giving Canada the biggest stake in the future of the North.

This year is particularly significant for Canada’s role in Arctic Council. Canada will have two years to chair the Arctic Council and make its mark on the governance of the region. In the coming year Canada will also seek to extend its continental shelf beyond its 200 mile excl-sive economic zone (EEZ), by an area geographically larger than the province of Quebec.

New geographical coordinates that incorporate the ex-tension must be submitted to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) by Novem-ber of this year. According to the Canadian Internation-al Council, “Many observers are waiting to see whether the Canadian coordinates will overlap with those of any of its northern neighbours.” In order to prevent such a situation Canada has worked closely with the United States and Denmark while mapping of the region. Yet, according to the Canadian International Council, it re-mains uncertain whether the new coordinates will in-fringe on the existing Russian shelf. If this is the case, the two countries will face a boundary dispute for the first time in their history.

While the expansion reasserts Canada’s sovereignty over the country’s existing Arctic territories, the pri-mary motivation behind this expansion appears to be economic; once the expansion is confirmed by the CLCS, the Canadian government will likely move to make valuable energy and mineral resources available for energy exploration and profit-driven corporate in-terests. Indeed, an October 2012 article in the National Post confirms that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has oft “touted Arctic mineral wealth and Canada’s off-shore resources as a vital economic inheritance for the nation.”

What will the increased development and international attention mean for the 85,000 residents of the Canadian Arctic? Conservative MP Leona Aglukkaq was name-


Minister of Health in 2008, becoming the first Inuk to be appointed to Cabinet. On Aglukkaq’s appointment the Canadian International Council stated that “…the government will be focusing on social, economic, and health priorities for the Arctic. This will represent a de-parture from the government’s previous focus on issues relating to sovereignty and security.” I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. I contend that Aglukkaq’s tenure in office has not, thus far, resulted in the priori-tization of serious mental and physical health concerns of Inuit and other Arctic groups in Canada.

Aglukkaq’s appointment is an insignificant nod in the Inuit people’s direction, rather than an indication that the current government is prepared to take an aggres-sive stance on health issues in the Arctic. Some of these issues stem from the Arctic’s changing physical envi-ronment and will certainly be impacted by increased economic development in the region. I am concerned in particular for the cultural health of indigenous popula-tions as they struggle to retain traditional practices and a measure of self-determination in the face of a rapidly changing and increasingly commercialized Arctic.

Unfortunately, Canada is not the only country that has betrayed less than robust support for ingenious peoples of the Arctic. Russia recently forced the closure of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), which was previously a Permanent Participant at the Arctic Council. As chair of the Arc-tic Council Canada must take a strong stance against this move by Russia, and also endeavour to increase the participation of indigenous peoples in the Canadian Arctic in the governance of the region.

I am not hopeful, however, that Canada has turned its attention towards the Arctic in order to improve the health and quality of life of its residents. In part, my sentiments are founded in the Canadian government’s pledge to build a large icebreaker and new class of navy vessels capable of operating in the Arctic. This pledge indicates that its focus in the region remains on sover-eignty and national security, as well as future economic development.

Canada’s influence on the world stage has declined, or at the very least shifted away from traditional avenues like making overt contributions to international bodies and agreements. Indeed, the Harper government recent-ly announced that the Canadian International Develop-ment agency (CIDA) is being eliminated as an inde-pendent entity and will be merged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAIT). This announce-ment comes as no surprise given Canada’s reduced aid to Africa in recent years, withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord and its dismal performances at climate confer-ences like COP15 and Rio+20.

International criticism is likely to grow if the Canadian government continues to place economic development before the mental, physical, and cultural health of in-digenous groups in the Arctic, elements of which are closely tied to the environmental health of the region as a whole. The government should look at the Arctic as a means to reverse the trend of declining international in-fluence and boost Canada’s contributions and visibility once on the world stage once more.

25Volume 9 Issue 4

Canada’s China Strategy No More Missed Opportunities

by Stephanie Rudyk

Canada’s days as a trailblazer regarding the West’s re-lations with China under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau have long since passed. In 1970, Canada was among the first countries to send diplomatic representa-tives to Mao’s People’s Republic of China, and played a key role in negotiating respect for the One-China policy of the Chinese Communist Party, while also maintain-ing diplomatic and trade relations with Taiwan. In 2013, China has the second largest economy in the world and posts growth rates between seven to ten percent that are the envy of every Western state. It has captured the imagination of countless political scholars and govern-ment officials alike, who predict that China’s rise as a world power has the potential to shift the Western axis around which foreign affairs currently revolves. Yet, in Canada, there is a perceptual disconnect between civil society and so-called “China practitioners” on the im-portance of trade and political integration with this rap-idly ascending country.

The Asia Pacific Foundation’s 2012 National Opinion Poll of Canadian Views On Asia revealed less than en-thusiastic opinions on China, with only 12 percent of those polled reporting to hold “warm” feelings towards the country, and only 29 percent indicating that they felt Canada was part of the Asia Pacific Region, in the sense that Canada’s Pacific coastline gives it a stake in the politics of the Asia Pacific. These numbers are surpris-ing considering the fact that half of the Canadian popu-lation views China’s rise and economic power as an op-portunity rather than a threat. Understanding how these perceptions took root and why they remain, despite the acknowledgement of the potential attached to China’s rise, is imperative for reconciling this perceptual gap.

Among Asia practitioners – Canadians that are engaged politically or economically in Asia – there is an over-whelming consensus that Canada’s influence in China is weak, and has been declining for the past 10 years. Slow to recognize the changing power dynamics, Can-ada’s pivot towards Asia has been on more of a slow burn than a fast-track; Canada has been dwarfed by almost all other Pacific-rim countries in the depth of its stake in the region. The fact that China is Canada’s second largest trading partner but only represents seven percent of total trade embodies the sentiment that there is vast untapped potential in the Canada-China relation-ship. So what is preventing Canada from engaging with China further?

For Canadians, the list of barriers to integration with China is numerous, and includes concern for the sancti-ty of intellectual property, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, bureaucratic obstacles to setting up busi-nesses, difficulty cultivating relationship networks and navigating the Chinese government, and the asymmetry of trade and investment between the two countries. In particular, this last issue causes fear that Chinese state-owned enterprises could have too great a stake in Ca-nadian natural resources. Adding to this list of tangible concerns are more nebulous barriers like general mis-understanding and lack of information about the mod-ern Chinese state and society, and perceived political and ideological incompatibility between authoritarian China and democratic Canada. These conceptions have been reinforced in part by the Canadian state.

Discourse on China was markedly negative under the early Harper administration. Concerns over Tibet, hu-


man rights, and lack of democratic transparency added a heavy dose of liberal morality that became embedded in Canadian diplomacy, and no doubt contributed to the fact that when surveyed, Canadians thought the three most notable characteristics about China were “cor-rupt”, “authoritarian”, and “threatening”. However, the fact that six-in-ten Canadians think that taking action on Canada’s own human rights abuses is necessary before preaching to Asia is perhaps a tentative sign that public opinion towards China is softening. Additionally, the present Harper administration has finally made China a top priority for DFAIT. John Baird has made consistent trips to the Asia Pacific during his tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and stated in an address to the Asia Pacific Society of Hong Kong that, “Canada must take an active role in this part of the world. It’s simply not a choice; it’s not an option; it’s a national imperative”. This is an indication that the Canada-China relationship might finally be prioritized as it should be.

The Government of Canada must start by changing public views and discourse on Asia more broadly, so that the opinions of civil society can catch up to those of Asia practitioners. In order for this to occur, more than just an economic pivot towards Asia must take place. Considering that China is one of the biggest sources of immigration to Canada, there are innumera-ble personal ties between the two countries. Cultivating these human connections, which sew the seeds of cul-

tural fluency, will help to temper Canadians’ concerns over engagement with China. It will allow Canada to move forward in its integration with the Chinese mar-ket, its diplomatic relations with the Chinese state, as well as cultivate human capital and affective ties be-tween the two countries that will help create the kind of momentum necessary to put Canada on China’s radar. One concrete way to do this would be to introduce Asia related curriculum into the Canadian education system, in an attempt to demystify the region. This could be done by bringing attention to the long history of Chi-nese immigration to Canada, China’s growing presence in the international system, and Canada’s position as a Pacific-rim state. Introducing more opportunities to learn Asian languages in school would also encourage future generations of Canadians, better equipped and eager to engage with the region.

It is also important that Canada turn the attention of its foreign policy towards Asia, in order to support its membership in key regional Asia-Pacific forums. Mov-ing forward, Asia practitioners suggest that Canada should prioritize and maintain a high profile in three institutions – the G20, Asia-Pacific Economic Coop-eration (APEC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In edition to the G20, Canada is currently an official member of APEC, which promotes open trade and economic integration in the region. It is a dialogue partner with ASEAN, and a member of

Graph taken from the Asia Pacific Society’s 2013 National Pole: Canadian Views on Asia, pg 15

27Volume 9 Issue 4

the ASEAN Regional Forum, which focuses of political and security diplomacy among its member states. Fur-thermore, it is involved in a number of Track II forums, which aim to improve diplomatic relations between the countries in a non-official and informal capacity. As economic integration is insufficient to develop the ro-bust relationship that Canada wants with China in the future, these multilateral institutions and bilateral dip-lomatic relations are key to comprehensive engagement with China and complimentary to both the Trans-Pa-cific Partnership and the Canada-China Foreign Invest-ment Promotion and Protection Agreement that Canada adopted this past year.

The Canada-China relationship is full of potential and promise, too much of which has gone untapped since

China’s reform and opening in the 1980s. China is Can-ada’s second largest trading partner, and with its econ-omy predicted to overtake the US economy by 2050, this relationship will only grow moving forward. Most importantly, narrowing the gap between Canadian civil society and Asia practitioners’ opinions on China is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in the Canada-China relationship. Demystifying Asia for average Canadians is imperative and crucial for ensuring that the Asia-Pa-cific region, and China most specifically, is recognized as not only an economic, but also a political priority for Canada in the 21st Century.

Stephanie Rudyk, QIO Editor in Chief


this school year?

While it is still premature to determine the effects it will have on the in-ternational community, I definitely think that leadership transition in the People’s Republic of China from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, is one of the most notable political events this year. Xi’s leadership marks a peaceful and sys-tematic transition of power within the Chinese Communist Party, making its success a symbol of both stability and renewal within the regime. More than ever, the world’s eyes are on China, and it will be interesting to see how Xi chooses to define his mandate as a leader in light of this fact.


The long-negotiated Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has entered the final stages of negotiation. The proposed deal is eas-ily the largest free-trade agreement ever attempted by Canada. While few Canadians have a deep knowledge of CETA, its effects will be felt profoundly in this country.

Deep economic ties between the European Union and Canada are not a new development. The volume of EU-Canada bilateral trade is estimated to be €52 bil-lion (approximately CDN $68 billion), making the Eu-ropean Union one of Canada’s most important trading partners (second-largest by some measures). In spite of the chronic economic issues plaguing Europe, the bloc remains the world’s single largest market, foreign in-vestor, and trader. Sealing a free-trade agreement is a tantalizing prospect for the Harper government, as it would further one of its chief foreign policy goals: di-versifying Canadian trade away from the United States.

CETA will cover a number of different areas, name-ly unhindered access to each other’s markets, frame-works for investment and trade, and the movement of professionals between Canada and the EU. Argu-ments in favour of the agreement are numerous, in-cluding the fact that Canada will have preferential access to the world’s single largest market while en-hancing competition and reducing prices. Perhaps most critically in the long-term, CETA will serve as a precedent for future free-trade deals in Asia.

However, much like the North American Free Trade Agreement of the 1990s, CETA is rife with controversy. Opponents point to an influx of European investment in the Alberta oil sands, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions. The ratification of CETA may also give rise to a liberalization of government procurement mar-kets, which could encourage moves like the privatiza-tion of public water systems. This point alone is a key

Canada-Europe Free Trade Boon or Bust?

by Daniel Bodirsky

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source of opposition to CETA in Canada, and helps set this agreement apart from others like NAFTA. Foreign companies would no longer be excluded from bid-ding on mass transit, utilities, and infrastructure proj-ects, something that they had traditionally been barred from doing by Canadian provinces and municipalities.

A large amount of criticism is levelled at the agree-ment’s controversial copyright provisions. Largely at the behest of European demands, CETA seeks to im-pose a stricter enforcement of intellectual property in Canada. The intellectual property section of the agreement is extremely similar to the Anti-Counter-feiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which the Europe-an Parliament failed to ratify in July 2012. This sec-tion includes intellectual property for pharmaceutical products, which would drive up the cost of generic brand drugs in Canada. In spite of these concerns, no major political party has come out against CETA.

Despite the closed nature of negotiations, the on-going talks have produced a considerable amount of public posturing on both sides. International Trade Minister Ed Fast and EU Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gu-cht have engaged in verbal sparring, chiefly over EU demands that Canada crack down upon potential vio-lations of intellectual property. With Barack Obama’s proposal for a US-EU free trade deal in February, European policymakers have become galvanized in their negotiations with Canada. De Gucht’s state-ments pushing for greater Canadian concessions un-derscore the sentiment that European policymakers believe they have the upper-hand, as a free-trade deal with the United States presents a more lucrative prize.

There remain a number of hurdles that continue to plague negotiations. European agricultural policy is a particu-lar sticking-point. In the context of CETA, Europe is seeking greater access to the Canadian market for dairy and poultry products, while Canada is seeking to export more beef products to the EU. Countries like France and Ireland, both of which are key stakeholders in agricul-ture, object to losing market share. Further, Canadian and European negotiators continue to disagree on other issues like intellectual property, financial services oper-ating more freely, and government procurement markets.

Should CETA pass, the biggest winners in Canada will be those in the aerospace, agriculture, and phar-

maceutical industries. They stand to benefit immense-ly from unimpeded access to global supply chains.

The sudden fast-tracked nature of CETA negotiations must be viewed in the context of the current govern-ment’s long-term plans of diversifying Canadian trade. Traditional Canadian economic reliance upon the Unit-ed States is not nearly as safe as it once was, having been shaken by the global economic uncertainty that began in 2008. While Ottawa is hardly cutting itself off from Washington, the Canadian government has made concerted efforts to conclude bilateral free-trade deals with a number of countries. These include Colombia in 2011, Peru in 2009, as well deals with Honduras, Jordan and Panama that have yet to be enacted. Canada joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on October 8 2012, coming together with a multitude of Pacific countries. There are also on-going negotiations for free-trade agree-ments with Japan, South Korea and Thailand, as well as a comprehensive investment promotion program with China. Thus, while Ottawa may give in to European de-mands regarding intellectual property and agriculture, the Conservative government may view it as a necessary step towards reaching the El Dorado of trade diversity.

CETA presents a mixed bag. Many will be adamant in their opposition to it, especially given the agreement’s controversial sections on intellectual property. Howev-er, with opposition virtually non-existent on the federal stage, and with the Harper government’s determination to push trade diversification forward, it seems likely that CETA will be finalized in the coming months.


It’s not often that Canada makes the world news over issues of its foreign policy. However, for a few short hours on September 7th 2012, Canada was the center of attention. While in Russia, Foreign Minister John Baird announced that Canada would be closing its embassy in Tehran and expelling all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada. The announcement came as a surprise to many observers, and raises a few significant questions. What triggered the Canadian government to take such a dras-tic step, what impact will this decision have on relations between the two countries, and was it the correct one?

Canadian-Iranian relations have historically been frosty even at the best of times. While relations between the two countries were officially established in 1955, they have been governed by the Controlled Engagement Policy, which did not allow for the establishment of consulates other than the main embassy or direct air links between the two countries. In 2003, efforts to limit engagement with Iran were continued when Canada stated that it would only discuss four topics with Iran, including the case of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian journalist who was allegedly killed in an Iranian prison by regime officials that year, as well as human rights in Iran, it’s nuclear program and Iran’s role in the Middle East in general.

Canada has also imposed several sanctions on the Iranian regime, such as the Special Economic Mea-sures Act on December 11th 2012. This sanction froze the assets of 98 Iranian companies and banned exporting certain materials to Iran that could be used in industries such as telecommunication and min-ing. Canada stated that this measure was taken due

to Iran’s continued lack of cooperation with the In-ternational Atomic Energy Agency and the P5+1 (the United Nations Security Council members perma-nent members, plus Germany) on its nuclear program.

The relationship between the two countries hit rock bot-tom with the suspension of diplomatic relations on Sep-tember 7th 2012. Officially, Mr. Baird stated, “The Ira-nian regime has shown blatant disregard for the Vienna Convention and its guarantee of protection for diplo-matic personnel.” Additionally, he cited Iran’s nuclear program, support for Syrian autocrat Bashar Al Assad, and Iran’s backing of terrorism around the world as jus-tification for the closure of Canada’s embassy in Tehran.

A few weeks prior to the announcement by the Canadian government, the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Move-ment was held in Tehran. The Summit came at a time when Western governments were applying increasing pressure on the Ahmadinejad government, attempting to isolate his regime. With over 120 countries represented at the Summit, however, it became evident that isola-tion tactics were not working. By cutting ties with Iran, some observers believed that Canada intended to send a clear message to Iran that its isolation is not yet over.

Another potential reason for the closure is that the deci-sion was made on the insistence of the Israeli govern-ment. It is no secret that Canada is strongly pro-Israel, perhaps even more so than the United States, and that Israel considers Iran to be a threat to its very existence. Within hours of the announcement by Mr. Baird, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the

Where Did They Go Wrong?A Closer Look at Canada’s

Relations with Iranby Idrees Ali

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Canadian government. He stated, “Prime Minister Ste-phen Harper... has made a bold leadership move that sends a clear message to Iran and to the entire world”.

So, what will be the impact of this decision on relations between Canada and Iran? The decision was seen as largely symbolic and in fact, the amount of impact it can actually have on Iran is limited. One reason for this is the fact that Canada has previously placed a series of sanctions on Iran, meaning that economic and other ties between the two countries are already limited and sever-ing them further will not have a dramatic effect. Indeed, Iran is reeling from high commodity prices and a short-age of consumer goods because of economic sanctions.

The people who are truly impacted by this deci-sion are ordinary Iranians and Canadians. With over 100,00 Iranians currently residing in Canada, the clo-sure of the embassy in Tehran makes dealing with visa and immigration issues difficult for them. Addi-tionally, those Iranians who are looking to enter Can-ada must go through the Turkish Embassy in Tehran.

The closure also puts at risk the three Canadians cur-rently imprisoned in Iran's notorious Evin prison. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall was sentenced to death in 2009 on charges of espionage carried out for the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an organization that seeks to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. The closing of the Canadian embassy in Tehran prompted his wife to ask the Canadian government, “What is the plan that Canada has to help Hamid?”

Was the decision to expel Iranian diplomats from Can-ada and close the embassy in Tehran the correct one? The simple answer is no. The Canadian government no longer has a channel to start dialogue with Iranians, putting Canada at a severe disadvantage. Ken Taylor, Canada’s ambassador to Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979, said, “Given Canada's status as an internation-al player, there's great value to having someone there on the ground who can interpret what is going on, to the extent that there are challenges to doing that properly.”

On November 29th, 2011, disgruntled students ran-sacked the British Embassy in Tehran, displaying their disapproval of the sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom on Iran. Despite this attack on its embassy, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg affirmed that the U.K. would not sever diplomatic ties with Iran, and that Britain would continue to look for a diplomat-ic solution to the nuclear question. In Canada’s case, this kind of direct diplomacy is no longer an option. President Obama’s thoughts will be turned towards his legacy as an American president; his first term in of-fice did not produce any breakthroughs in terms of for-eign policy, and with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis un-likely to be resolved soon, Obama may try to make his mark by working toward the resolution of the Iranian nuclear question. Whether this will happen in the short term or long term is unclear. However, when Iranian isolation inevitably subsides over time, the Harper gov-ernment will regret its decision to sever ties with Iran.

QIO Volume 9 Issue 4

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Transcript of QIO Volume 9 Issue 4