With the upcoming Federal election just days away, let’s dig a little bit into an old slogan.
Specifically, it’s the expression that “the United Nations is dysfunctional”. It’s something Maxime Bernier has said many times over the years, although the justifications have changed.
According to Bernier in his 2016/2017 CPC leadership race, this is the reason he stated that the United Nations was dysfunctional:
I won’t aim to please the foreign affairs establishment and the United Nations — a dysfunctional organisation which for years has disproportionately focused its activities on condemning Israel. Instead, I will ensure our country’s foreign policy will be refocused on the security and prosperity of Canadians.
Keep in mind, Bernier was Foreign Affairs Minister from 2007 to 2008. His job was to be up to date on what was happening internationally. Sure, there are many reasons that the U.N. could be viewed as dysfunctional. However, the only one he gave was that it spent too much time criticising Israel.
And why was the United Nations regularly condemning Israel? For continued expansion in the Middle East, and of violating various ceasefire agreements, among other things. The various resolutions are publicly available.
This isn’t a “Canada first” approach to foreign policy. It’s Bernier telling the U.N. to shut up about what’s going on in the region. It’s probably a very popular position in mainstream conservative circles.
Here’s the more recent, cleaned up version from the PPC website:
Over the past several years, Canada has signed many UN treaties, accords and compacts on issues ranging from global warming to migration and sustainable development, that tie us to the globalist agenda. The United Nations is a dysfunctional organisation where non-democratic countries, because of their large numbers, have the most influence. This leads to ridiculous situations. For example, several of the member states on the UN Human Rights Council are among the worst human rights offenders in the world. As one country among almost 200, Canada has no interest in seeing the UN grow into a more powerful, quasi-world government.
It certainly is ridiculous that some of the worst human rights offenders are part of the Human Rights Council. No sensible person would dispute that. That being said, it wasn’t enough of a concern when he ran for the CPC leadership to even put in his platform.
He likely realized it would be too hard to “sell” himself as a populist with the old version, so it needed to be amended.
And as for a quasi-world government, it’s strange that he seemed to have no idea what was happening under his nose in 2007. Again, he was the Foreign Affairs Minister.
His current stance is to rail against “neocons” who see nothing wrong with engineering regime change in places such as Ukraine. On the surface, there’s nothing to disagree with here.
Economic sanctions against Russia were a geopolitical blunder on the West’s part that backfired. They destabilized the global economy, and pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. There is no reason to treat Russia as our enemy. The war did not start with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but when the neoconservatives in the US and their allies in Ottawa and European capitals engineered the regime change in Ukraine in 2014. It could have been avoided if NATO had not tried to encircle Russia and had given Putin assurances that Ukraine would never join it as a member.
However, some consistency would be nice.
Bernier voted to extend Canada’s commitment to war in the Middle East in 2006, and again in 2008. Apparently, he had no issue with prolonging our role in a foreign conflict and regime change. He’s against neocons and warmongers, except when he’s acting as one of them.
He’s extremely vague about what “our values” are as Canadians, and mostly refuses to specify what kinds of groups should be excluded from this country. There is one exception, what he calls “radical Islam”.
There are also some double standards surrounding free speech and political influence. Conservatives railed against Iqra Khalid’s Motion, M-103, which resulted in money being spent to combat Islamophobia. But they were supportive of Bill C-250, which jails people for Holocaust denial. And while Trudeau (rightfully) took flack for his trip to Aga Khan’s island, those same conservatives participate in taxpayer funded trips to Israel. Sure, China is a danger, but it’s hardly the only one.
Then there’s the issue of supporting Bill C-16, compelled speech for gender pronouns.
While Bill C-63 (Online Harms Act) was justifiably criticized, there’s silence on some of the foreign lobbies who are pushing for it. See here and here. If free speech is going to be gutted, there needs to be an honest and frank discussion about where it’s coming from.
Why does all of this matter? Because the whole “populist” narrative comes across as completely fake. It gives off the vibes of someone just going through the motions, for $104,000 per year.
There are, of course, the usual concerns about the lack of a constitution, or a genuine leadership race. Recently, Max bought a retirement home in Florida, and appears to live there. But even if PPC were a real party, who would be influencing it?
(1) Wayback Machine Link To Bernier’s Website
(2) https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/issues/foreign-policy
(3) https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/39/1/9
(4) https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/39/2/76
(5) https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/42/1/237
(6) https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/42/1/126
(7) https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/en/publications/Pages/SponsoredTravel-DeplParraines.aspx
(8) https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/cmmLgPblcVw?comlogId=610896
(9) https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/cmmLgPblcVw?comlogId=607729
(10) https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/peoples-party-canada-maxime-bernier-1.5695908