Honesty is the best policy

Preston Manning – The Globe and Mail, December 29, 2009

“Canadians have a strong desire for their country to be respected as a moral beacon
and to set an example on the global stage.” So wrote Michael Adams and Keith
Neuman in a recent Globe and Mail opinion piece.
So, has Prime Minister Harper made any progress toward this lofty goal in his
recent visits to China and Copenhagen? He most definitely has, and should receive
full credit for doing so.
Let’s start with China. The Prime Minister has been criticized for being slow to
visit China and to pursue the trade opportunities which that burgeoning economy
represents. And what was the reason for this alleged slowness and the frosty
beginning to the Harper administration’s relations with the Chinese government?
It was the Prime Minister’s general concern over that government’s “democracy
doctrine” which consistently sacrifices individual rights and freedoms to collective
rights arbitrarily exercised by the state, and his specific concern over particular
human rights violations (such as the case of Huseyin Celil, an Uyghurian Muslim
with a Canadian passport presently imprisoned in northwest China).
Having made these concerns clear to the Chinese authorities (would Canadians
have had him do otherwise?), the Prime Minister then made equally clear on his
recent visit that Canada earnestly desires an expansion of Canada-China trade. So,
incidentally, does China – regardless of Canada’s position on democracy and
human rights – when such trade is in China’s interests.
And so the Canadian government’s position is that we hold a fundamentally
different view of democracy and human rights than the Chinese government, that
Canada wishes to vigorously pursue mutually advantageous trade opportunities
with China, and that we will not sacrifice the one position for the other. It is an
honest and transparent position reflective of a strong segment of Canadian public
opinion and we should be proud of the Prime Minister’s willingness and ability to
represent it.
Contrast this with the approach of the previous Liberal administration under Jean
Chrétien and Lloyd Axworthy. Frequent visits to China all right, but much smoke
and mirrors on both human rights and trade. Explaining apologetically to the
Chinese (with a few ingratiating anti-American sideswipes thrown in) that it was

1
necessary to say something on human rights for consumption back home. So,
please, “let us say something” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and get it over with as
quickly and innocuously as possible so that we can get on to the real reason for
being here, trade – including the staged contract-signing ceremonies which often
characterized Team Canada missions.
This was a Canada-China policy characterized by what? Hypocrisy! No wonder it
took the Chinese authorities two years to figure Mr. Harper out and to realize that
they were dealing with something and someone different – a leader who says what
he means and means what he says on both human rights and trade. And whether
you agree with him or not, what you see is what you get.
But now let’s go to Copenhagen, or perhaps let’s first re-visit Kyoto. It is now
clear that when Mr. Chrétien’s envoys went to Kyoto with much fanfare in 1997 to
sign the Kyoto Accord, the real intent could not have been to make a serious
commitment to control greenhouse gas emissions. If it had been, the targets agreed
to would have been realizable, based on solid science and realistic estimates of the
compliance costs, and backed by enforceable, previously negotiated
understandings with the provinces and the private sector without whose
cooperation implementation of the Accord was impossible.
So what, then, was the intent? It was to climb on to the international stage, agree to
targets hopefully superior to those of the United States, create an impression (a
false one) of Canada as a good green fellow morally superior to Uncle Sam, get the
photo op, return home with a green halo, and then blame the provinces and the
private sector for failure to meet the targets.
So once again, a Canadian position on an issue of international importance
characterized by what? Hypocrisy!
So now let’s go to Copenhagen. Is there still a whiff of hypocrisy around some of
the Canadian presence and positions there? Sadly, yes. Toronto’s Mayor David
Miller is on stage professing to be embarrassed as a Canadian by the CO2 belching
oil sands plants in Alberta, while proudly proclaiming the environmental purity of
Toronto.
He must have hoped that the many journalists in Copenhagen would be too busy to
check Environment Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions surveys (2007 being the
latest figures). According to that data, GHG emissions from the oil sands were in
the range of 40 megatonnes per year while those from the Greater Toronto Area
were in the range of 80 megatonnes per year. (This assumes that the GTA accounts
for roughly 43% of the 197 megatonnes of GHG emitted per year in Ontario,

2
primarily from cars and trucks, electricity and heat generation, residential,
manufacturing, and industrial sources.)
Both of these figures must invoke vigorous efforts to harness full-cost accounting,
science and technology, market mechanisms (in particular, carbon pricing), and
enlightened government policy to the task of reducing them. But to pretend that
Alberta (a major producer of hydrocarbons) has a problem and Toronto (a major
consumer of hydrocarbons) does not, is not only ludicrous but again hypocritical.
Finally, contrast the approach taken by Prime Minister Harper in going to
Copenhagen with that taken by Mr. Chrétien on Kyoto and that of Mr. Miller. Mr.
Harper comes with a willingness to commit to realistic targets – the same ones the
Government has been consistently talking about at home – and to keep those
targets in line with those adopted by the United States, our largest trading partner.
“Conservative” targets? Yes, as they should be, since targets set by those with real
implementation responsibilities will always be more conservative than targets
proposed by those (advocacy groups, academics, editorialists, UN committees)
with no such responsibilities.
You may or may not agree with the particulars of the Conservative government’s
positions on human rights, trade with China, or the environment as expressed by
Prime Minister Harper on his recent visits to Beijing, Shanghai, or Copenhagen.
But surely the modesty, honesty, and transparency demonstrated by the Prime
Minister on these issues is preferable to hypocrisy-tainted policies, if Canada truly
aspires to be a “moral beacon” on the global stage.

*Preston Manning is President and CEO of the Manning Centre for Building
Democracy, www.manningcentre.ca.