Canada's Security Council audition

Stephen Harper went to the UN Monday, made a speech, then scampered back to Ottawa for the gun registry vote. Could this affect Canada's chances of landing a seat on the Security Council?

World leaders are at UN headquarters in New York this week and while the Millennium Development Goals are ostensibly the main agenda, as usual there’s much political gamesmanship afoot. Stephen Harper is trying to land Canada a temporary seat on the Security Council next month, but to do so he has to navigate the complex world of international diplomacy while burdened with some domestic baggage of his own.

In the National Post Steven Edwards outlines the diplomatic dance between Canada and Germany, which is also after the council seat. Securing it depends on winning over the developing countries in the General Assembly, but yesterday Chancellor Angela Merkel made it clear that Germany won’t increase its aid to those countries, “thereby signaling her government’s confidence in its election battle.” Edwards writes that Canada’s chances could be hurt by its leadership of the annual boycott of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s UN speech. Iran always “musters sizeable minority opposition to it – raising the potential for those countries to react to Canada’s boycott by withholding their support for Canada in the Security Council vote.”

In contrast to Merkel, Harper announced that Canada will increase its contribution to the Global Fund by $90 million. This didn’t satisfy the Toronto Star however, which ran an editorial today calling the aid “a drop in the bucket.” The modest increase is “well below what might be expected, given Canada’s bid for a Security Council seat next month” says the editorial. “This isn’t leadership offering hope. It’s coasting, nothing more.”

Harper couldn’t even stick around to campaign for the seat, and rushed back to Ottawa today to for the crucial gun registry vote. Some critics say he’s not paying enough attention to important international issues.

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff questioned whether Canada deserves the seat, at least as long as Harper’s in power. “This is a government that for four years has basically ignored the United Nations and now is suddenly showing up saying, ‘Hey, put us on the council,” Ignatieff said. “Has this government earned that place? We're not convinced it has.”