Canada’s Record on the African Continent Does Not Merit Security Council seat 

Dear United Nations Ambassadors,

The Canadian government’s path to a Security Council runs through Africa, however, it’s foreign policy record on the continent does not merit the seat. The current Canadian prime minister has supported dubious climate policies, controversial mining companies and a war opposed by the African Union that spilled into various countries on the continent.

In 2011 a Canadian general lead the NATO war on Libya. The African Union vigorously opposed the bombing campaign, arguing it could destabilize neighboring countries. Indeed, violence in Libya soon spilled southward to Mali and across much of the Sahel region.

The Canadian government has given various forms of support to the mining industry, which has been embroiled in dozens of conflicts with local communities across the continent. They have channeled tens of millions of dollars in development assistance to support the industry and negotiated Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements largely designed to solidify the position of Canadian mining interests. In 2017, Global Affairs Canada threw its diplomatic weight behind Canada’s most controversial mining firm in the country where it has committed some of its worst abuses. Between 2006 and 2016 65 people were killed and hundreds injured by security forces paid by Barrick Gold at its North Mara Mine in Tanzania. With Barrick’s subsidiary, embroiled in a conflict with the government over hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes and royalties, Canada’s High Commissioner, Ian Myles, set up a meeting between Barrick Executive Chairman John Thornton and Tanzanian President John Magufuli. After accompanying Barrick’s head to the encounter in Dar es Salaam, Myles, told the press, “Canada is very proud that it expects all its companies to respect the highest standards, fairness and respect for laws and corporate social responsibility. We know that Barrick is very much committed to those values.”

While it promotes controversial mining interests, the Canadian government has ignored at least five UN bodies calling on Ottawa to hold mining companies accountable for their international operations.

From the desertification of the Sahel region to rising sea levels in heavily populated coastal areas of West Africa, climate change is a death sentence for ever-growing numbers of Africans. In a profound injustice, most of those worst hit by climate-related disturbances have emitted the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Per capita GHG emissions in many African countries amount to a small fraction of Canada’s rate. Canada’s competitors for the Security Council seats, Norway and Ireland’s, per capita greenhouse gas emissions are a little more than half of Canada’s. Between 2017 and 2018 Canada’s GHG emissions actually rose 15 million tonnes and then the government decided to purchase a massive tar sands pipeline. In March 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau told oil executives in Houston, “no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.” Extracting 173 billion barrels of carbon intensive Canadian tar sands oil would drive ever-greater numbers of Africa’s most vulnerable into greater precarity.

Despite Justin Trudeau’s friendly rhetoric, until Canada begins to act like a friend, rather than a neocolonial power, it doesn’t deserve a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Sincerely,