{"id":267973,"date":"2020-03-04T11:32:07","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T16:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/the-myth-of-canada-as-a-voice-for-human-rights\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:51:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:51:47","slug":"the-myth-of-canada-as-a-voice-for-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2020\/03\/the-myth-of-canada-as-a-voice-for-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"The myth of Canada as a voice for human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s international human rights policy opens with a lie<\/a>: \u201cCanada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values. This started with our central role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947-1948 to our work at the United Nations today.\u201d Isn\u2019t it time for official Canada to finally transform this founding lie about human rights into something that is true?<\/p>\n

As historians have proven<\/a>, the Canadian government did not support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In fact, Canadian officials resisted the idea and content of the Declaration, and they worked in typically quiet Canadian opposition to it.<\/p>\n

At the first vote in 1948, Canada was among the tiny minority that withheld support for the Declaration. While the United States campaigned hard for the UDHR, a few skeptics resisted, including the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, South Africa \u2013 and Canada. An embarrassed External Affairs Minister Lester B. Pearson persuaded his cabinet colleagues to change their vote, and Canada came around in the final General Assembly vote, but still dragged its feet.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s role in developing the Declaration did not come from government. McGill law professor John Humphrey, then-head of the UN Human Rights Division, helped draft the UDHR<\/a>. Humphrey pronounced himself \u201cashamed\u201d<\/a> of Canada\u2019s actions in resisting it.<\/p>\n

What is most interesting about the myth of Canada\u2019s \u201ccentral role\u201d is how often it is uncritically repeated. Most recently, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation\u2019s Nicolas Moyer repeated the false history in a Policy Options<\/em> article<\/a>, calling Canada \u201ca key player in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947.\u201d<\/p>\n

That just ain\u2019t so.<\/p>\n

Ancient history? Perhaps. But there is a larger lie in Canada\u2019s international human rights policy statement: its claim that \u201cCanada has been a consistently<\/em> strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly there have been moments when the reality of government policy has risen to those dizzying rhetorical heights. But any sober review of the record reveals Canada has been, at best, a sporadic \u2013 rather than consistent \u2013 voice for human rights. At worst, it has often undermined rights. Advocacy of democratic values has played a poor second to promoting Canadian trade and investment.<\/p>\n

I make this case in a new book<\/a> that reviews Canadian policy towards one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s nastier human-rights tragedies: the Indonesian military occupation of Timor-Leste (East Timor) from 1975 to 1999. Here was a small country invaded by a larger one; a democracy invaded by a military regime \u2013 with the frequent complicity of the Government of Canada.<\/p>\n

Timor-Leste declared independence in November 1975. Days later, the Indonesian army invaded. At least 100,000 people \u2013 perhaps twice that number \u2013 died<\/a> due to warfare, human-rights violations, and famine caused by the occupation. That represented one-sixth to one-quarter of the country\u2019s population, a near-genocide on the scale of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, which occurred at about the same time.<\/p>\n

Under then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada consented to the invasion of East Timor. It lamented human-rights violations but took no action. Instead, Indonesia became a leading destination for Canadian aid. In Pierre Trudeau\u2019s words<\/a>, \u201con balance we decided that stability of the region should be the foremost concern and thus had supported Indonesia.\u201d Human rights took a back seat.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s courtship of General Suharto\u2019s<\/a> dictatorship in Indonesia accelerated under Brian Mulroney. Indonesia became Canada\u2019s second-largest aid recipient. Despite an active campaign by Amnesty International and others, then-external affairs minister Joe Clark denied<\/a> the killings, pronouncing himself \u201csatisfied that there are not massive violations of human rights\u201d in East Timor.<\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s successor, Barbara McDougall, took a tougher line, freezing aid<\/a> after a massacre in East Timor. But Canadian sanctions were hesitant and \u2013 like the Mulroney government\u2019s limited sanctions after China\u2019s Tiananmen Square massacre \u2013 carefully calibrated to avoid damage to Canadian trade interests. Despite the aid freeze, two-way trade between Canada and Indonesia soared by almost 50 percent the following year.<\/p>\n

That trend accelerated under Jean Chr\u00e9tien\u2019s Liberals, who consistently prioritized trade over human rights. Chr\u00e9tien\u2019s government identified Indonesia as a priority trade market, and made a major pitch to sell it weapons. Arms export permits peaked at a startling $362 million<\/a> in 1995. The floodgates for military exports closed only after the Timorese voted for independence<\/a> in a UN-sponsored referendum in 1999.<\/p>\n

Canadian arms sales continue to flow to human-rights violators today. Once, Canada barred military exports<\/a> to any country that violated human rights, or where there was even a potential risk that Canadian weapons might be used against civilian populations. Today, arms exports flow much more freely.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, Canada\u2019s top non-US market, is an example. Despite credible reports that Canadian-made weapons have been used<\/a>, and despite the Saudi human rights record<\/a> \u2013 including numbering among the world\u2019s worst violators of women\u2019s rights \u2013 military exports continue at an alarming clip. It\u2019s hard to dispute that Canada now sells military goods to human rights violators much more readily than it once did.<\/p>\n

Does the mythmaking matter? In the sense that it allows Canadians to pretend we are human rights advocates, a claim at direct variance from the reality of Canadian policy, yes. In the 1990s, Canada stopped co-sponsoring UN resolutions promoting human rights in China. Instead, it turned to a \u201cbilateral human-rights dialogue\u201d held behind closed doors, thus helping China overturn elements of the international human rights regime<\/a>. Then-prime minister Stephen Harper hectored China, then pirouetted and sent cabinet ministers to virtually kowtow to China. The result is a China policy in tatters, and a government impotent in its efforts to free Canadians held unjustly<\/a> in Chinese prisons.<\/p>\n

What we need is a human rights policy that abandons self-satisfied pablum about the world needing \u201cmore Canada,\u201d and prioritizes reinvestment in diplomacy and aid. The present government declares it has a feminist aid policy<\/a>, but in reality such a policy needs proper development funding. (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s government gives half the aid his father gave when measured as a percentage of gross national income<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Few things harm rights-promotion more than smug sermons. Canada\u2019s government must listen as well as preach. For example, we have much to learn about relations with Indigenous Peoples. Ottawa should heed the message of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination<\/a>, which points out<\/a> that natural resource development is trumping the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A consistent human-rights strategy could mean restoring the old emphasis on strengthening civil society<\/a> overseas, which once garnered Canada considerable respect. Today, Canadian mining companies are often complicit in human rights violations<\/a>. Canada should regulate the activities of Canadian-based companies overseas. The current government\u2019s efforts in that direction are so weak that its NGO collaborators<\/a> walked out of the process rather than be used as window dressing.<\/p>\n

At the government level, Canada\u2019s human rights record is spotty. At the civil society level, individual Canadians have done impressive work. Official Canada needs to back that work already being done by unofficial Canada if we are to transform the founding lie about human rights into something that is true.<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0Timorese human-rights activist Bella Galhos speaking at the Human Rights Memorial in Ottawa in 1995. Credit: East Timor Alert Network<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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Canada\u2019s international human rights policy opens with a lie: \u201cCanada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values. This started with our central role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947-1948 to our work at the United Nations today.\u201d Isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":277016,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:51:50Z","apple_news_api_id":"78f93570-c42f-4b5b-8057-bdba6267442b","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:51:50Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AePk1cMQvS1uAV726YmdEKw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9387,9360,9372],"tags":[8542],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4217,4339],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[7127],"class_list":["post-267973","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elaboration-de-politiques","category-international","category-recent-stories-fr","tag-human-rights-fr","irpp-category-affaires-internationales","irpp-category-loi-et-justice","irpp-tag-droits-de-la-personne"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe myth of Canada as a voice for human rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2020\/03\/the-myth-of-canada-as-a-voice-for-human-rights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The myth of Canada as a voice for human rights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Canada\u2019s international human rights policy opens with a lie: \u201cCanada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values. 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