John Baird Vs. The World

Sometimes, you have to boycott the committee you have, not the one you want a seat on.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has taken to his new gig with aplomb, announcing boycotts of North Korea at the United Nations and planning to visit China to strengthen business ties. The Winnipeg Free Press' editorialists say Canadians can “take pride” in Baird's stand against North Korea chairing the Conference on Disarmament, as Canada was the lone country to boycott the proceedings. The boycott “exemplified the new Canadian determination to be a player in international affairs,” an “assertiveness” that hasn't really existed in the last decade (minus that whole, y'know, Afghanistan thing). Sure, it's patently ridiculous in an “only at the UN” sort of way that the looniest of loony dictatorships is leading the conference. We're just hesitant to say that there's much to be proud about in the boycott – if deciding to take a summer break from a barely registerable conference that's hardly lived up to its name can be considered aggressive, that's setting the bar a little low.

Postmedia's Steven Edwards observes the irony in Canadian representatives being more than willing to work with North Korean officials on the committee before they chaired it. “Diplomats pointed out Monday that Canada, which took on the chair at the beginning of the year, appears to have had no objection to attending these meetings alongside North Korea from January through to the beginning of North Korea's tenure less than two weeks ago,” writes Edwards. Of course, six months of closed-door negotiations are hardly newsworthy enough to warrant headlines and op-eds. The boycott, then, appears to be a means to play to the folks back home at the expense of an extremely low-stakes UN committee. Of course, without having a seat on a council that means anything, like, oh, the Security Council, you have to boycott the committee you're on, not the committee you want.

Of far greater importance to this country's standing are its relations with China, which Dermod Travis, writing, well, for us here at The Mark, suggests have undergone a “tectonic shift” under Baird. The foreign affairs minister recently called for stronger business ties with China in a speech to a room full of Toronto business executives, while pledging to hold “frank” talks with the Chinese leadership on their deplorable human rights record ... which sounds great, but, as Travis points out, Canada has been relatively mum on Chinese abuses compared to those of countries with much less economic sway. “Search the Foreign Affairs website for a 'Fact Sheet on Canada’s Engagement on Human Rights in Colombia' and a fact sheet will be found,” says Travis. Good luck finding one for China, though. In essence, Baird's placating our inherent sense of international do-goodism to justify solidifying ties with a country with an unquenchable appetite for our resources.