SPEECHES
MR. KILGOUR - ADDRESS ON THE OCCASION OF THE EDMONTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLLABORATIVE SOCIAL STUDIES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY - EDMONTON, ALBERTA
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS
BY
THE HONOURABLE DAVID KILGOUR,
SECRETARY OF STATE (LATIN AMERICA & AFRICA)
ON CANADA IN THE UNITED NATIONS AND NATO
ON THE OCCASION OF THE EDMONTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
COLLABORATIVE SOCIAL STUDIES
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY
EDMONTON, Alberta
November 19, 1999
It is a great pleasure to speak to such an important group as this. As someone who has raised teenagers, I
think you all deserve medals. Of course my teenagers are all angels, but I know that sometimes it takes
Herculean efforts to interest young people in social studies when there are so many things competing for their
attention.
Your job is an extremely important one because you hold the future of Canada's international relations in your
classrooms. I am often struck by the higher level of global knowledge among Canadians compared with our
friends south of the border. That awareness is in large part a result of our first-rate social studies teachers and
strong public education system.
I've been asked to discuss with you Canada's role in the United Nations, and also to comment on our role in
NATO. Canada's foreign policy has long been one of engagement rather than isolationism. We are open to the
world and prefer to act multilaterally on the global stage, as one of many and in close co-operation with like-minded countries.
Rejecting isolationism
That notion of openness has, until recently, enjoyed support from all Canada's major political parties since the
founding of the United Nations 54 years ago. Isolationism has long been a strong undercurrent in American
politics, but it has not taken root here. That is why some of the recent dialogue on Canada's foreign policy has
been particularly disturbing. I do not wish to engage in partisan polemic except to say that Canada has gained
influence on the global stage through active participation - not by withdrawing. International institutions are not
perfect, but Canada has been at the forefront in seeking reforms at the United Nations and other organizations.
Such changes can only come about through active engagement - not by threatening to take our marbles and
walk away when we don't like the rules.
In that regard, I note that President Clinton and Congress have apparently reached an agreement that would
allow the Americans to pay part of their arrears to the UN. There may be concerns about details of the
agreement, but it is a clear signal that the United States recognizes the value of active participation in the UN. It
is a rejection of isolationism.
If Canada is in fact "the world's greatest joiner," this is not a bad thing, but rather a cause for pride. Our active
participation in the UN, NATO, the OSCE, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, the Organization of American
States, the World Trade Organization and others has brought us significant international influence. Testimony
to that influence was our successful campaign for a two-year seat on the UN Security Council. During that
campaign when I visited foreign capitals as Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa, I was struck by the
genuinely strong praise for Canada's international role.
Canada on the Security Council
Canada has used its seat on the Security Council to advance three key policy goals:
1. to broaden the interpretation of the Security Council's mandate to include human security issues along with
traditional security issues. I'll have more to say on this in a moment.
2. to reassert the primacy of the Security Council in peace and security issues; and
3. to increase transparency of the Council's work.
Through the Security Council we have advanced our human security agenda on a number of major issues
affecting the world's people. In February this year we served in the one-month rotating seat as Security Council
President. We used that tenure to advance - among other initiatives - attention to the protection of civilians in
armed conflict. Canada's resolution on this subject won unanimous support and has lead to a report with
recommendations from Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Recent conflicts in Kosovo and Sierra Leone showed that "civilianization" of armed conflict has become one of
the most common and lamentable features of modern war. More than ever, non-combatants, especially the
most vulnerable, are not merely caught in the crossfire, but are themselves principal targets. In the past
decade, casualties from armed conflict have doubled to about one million a year. In the First World War civilian
casualties accounted for five percent. Today, in modern conflict, closer to 80 percent of casualties are civilian.
The nature of war has changed in other ways. Most conflicts today occur inside rather than between states.
Wars from within can be just as brutal and ugly as conflicts between nations. Sadly, we have witnessed
genocide in Rwanda, in the fragments of the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere. In failed states warlords and
vigilantes have filled the vacuum, aided by international arms traffickers. Brutalization and exploitation of
civilians, involving gross violations of humanitarian law, have led to massive refugee flows. Such situations
cannot simply be seen as internal matters. They affect us all.
New threats to human security
Human security is now a cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy in the United Nations and elsewhere.
Understanding the concept of human security involves seeing the world through a different lens than from that
used in the decades of the Cold War. The world has changed, and now some of the greatest threats to civilians
come from non-state actors and go beyond traditional understandings of security. These include terrorism,
international organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering, small weapons proliferation, exploitation
of children, disease, famine and environmental degradation.
The United Nations was conceived as an international body involving, as its name suggests, the nations of the
world. In the wake of the Second World War, the nation- state was the dominant actor in the global polity. In the
period of decolonization that followed, and in the Cold War, the role of the nation-state was intensified. The end
of the Cold War has not brought the world peace that many hoped for - only the realization that the challenges
to human security that we now confront occur on many levels, both local and global, and are multifaceted.
Increasingly they involve such non-state actors as transnational corporations, non-governmental organizations,
civil society, and ultimately individuals.
In a stirring speech to both Houses of Parliament last April, Czech President Vaclav Havel observed the
declining role of the state and the notion that what takes place within a country's borders is nobody else's
business.
"I believe," he said, "that in the coming century most states will begin to transform from cult-like objects, which
are charged with emotional contents, into much simpler and more civil administrative units, which will be less
powerful and, especially, more rational and will constitute merely one of the levels in a complex and stratified
planetary societal self-organization. This change, among other things, should gradually antiquate the idea of
non-intervention, that is, the concept of saying that what happens in another state, or the measure of respect
for human rights there, is none of our business."
Havel observed that the responsibilities of the state can only go in two directions: down or up -- downwards to
the organs and structures of civil society, or upwards to various regional, transnational or global communities or
organizations. This transfer, he said, has already begun.
Havel went on to note the obvious implication of this: the United Nations must undergo substantial reform if it is
to perform the tasks it faces in the next century. It can no longer maintain conditions from a period when the
organization was formed. It must become less bureaucratic and more effective, and must belong to all
inhabitants of the globe. In other words, it must not simply be a club of governments in which one state, through
the Security Council veto, can outvote the rest of the world.
Reforming the UN
The Canadian government shares much of Havel's vision, in particular on the need to reform the UN to bring it
more in line with a changing global environment. We, too, have taken a strong stand against the abuse of the
veto that the five permanent members hold. I've mentioned our policy goals of making the Security Council's
work more transparent and reasserting the primacy of the Council in peace and security issues.
In recent years at the UN and in other forums such as G-8 meetings, we have played a leadership role in calling
for other reforms: of finance and management, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and
peacebuilding, and to the UN's economic and social development activities. We strongly support the set of
reforms introduced in 1997 by Secretary-General Annan aimed at streamlining and modernizing the UN. Under
his leadership, the UN has been streamlined with 1000 positions cut. Savings in administration are being
channelled to development projects. The changes are being implemented, and a Canadian, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette, is overseeing their implementation.
Canada has advocated various measures to improve the UN's financing and management, and to solve cash
flow problems. We favour greater cost-effectiveness throughout the system, better management of human
resources, a delayering of bureaucracy, and better co-ordinated management of the UN system. Canada
advocates a zero nominal growth for UN budgets and a reform of the scale of assessments based on equity
and which better reflects countries' capacities to pay.
In the field of conflict prevention and resolution, Canada has made a number of recommendations aimed at
increasing the UN's rapid deployment capability.
The make-up of the Security Council has been controversial and there have been proposals to expand its
membership to take into account the increased international role of countries that were not among the major
World War II allies, as well as developing countries. Canada wants to see a Security Council that is more
effective, transparent, and broadly representative. Above all, it should be less elitist and more democratic. We
believe, however, that any expansion of the Security Council should be for the non-permanent members.
Canada the peacekeeper
Canada has been a strong supporter of peacekeeping operations since their beginnings with the Suez Crisis in
1956. It was for his role in that crisis that Lester B. Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then,
Canada has participated in the overwhelming majority of peacekeeping operations established by the Security
Council - most recently in East Timor. We are the sixth largest UN troop contributor, with more than 1000
personnel deployed in UN operations around the world. Tens of thousands of Canadians have served in 30
different UN missions, and more than 100 have lost their lives doing so. It is no wonder then that Canada has a
stake in improving the efficiency of peacekeeping operations.
Unfortunately the UN has failed to respond to some of the most serious international crises of the past half
century. This is partly a result of its unwieldy structure and its lack of resources and partly due to the difficulty of
arriving at a global consensus with 188 member countries. In particular the veto power of the five permanent
members effectively paralysed the Security Council during the Cold War. The threat of veto was one of the
reasons the UN was unable to act decisively in Kosovo.
Canada in NATO
I've been asked also to comment on Canada's role in NATO, and this is as good a place as any. As you know,
it was ultimately NATO that had to bring force to bear on the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, which was
conducting so-called "ethnic cleansing" against Kosovar Albanians. It became apparent that the UN had neither
the will to act nor the means, and the international community could no longer stand idly by. Canada would
have strongly preferred that the United Nations Security Council explicitly authorize NATO's mission.
Unfortunately some members of the Council remained wedded to the old ideas of national sovereignty and non-interference to which Havel referred.
NATO did not provoke this tragedy - it responded to it. Although Alliance territory was not itself under threat,
NATO could not ignore the humanitarian crisis occurring on its European doorstep. The NATO action was a
departure from the Alliance's traditional role of defending its members' territory, but it was a response that
recognized the need to adapt to the new global reality. Conflicts such as Kosovo have serious impacts on
neighbouring countries, resulting in massive flows of refugees and threatening to destabilize the region. In this
sense, human security and national security are not mutually exclusive. Rather they are opposite sides of the
same global security coin.
This year NATO celebrated its 50th birthday. No longer does NATO face the enormous conventional threat of
the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union and its 350 000 soldiers in East Germany. Today former Warsaw Pact
countries are themselves joining NATO. The changes in Europe are as much a testimony to NATO's success
as they are to the failure of communism. Many believe that the chance of nuclear war was much less likely and
peace was maintained in Europe precisely because of NATO's strength in the past 50 years. It is a success
unparalleled in history. As historian Jack Granatstein observed, NATO was one of the few alliances to win a
war without fighting and to have gone on once its nominal enemy was off the field.
NATO still relevant
NATO continues to be relevant even after the Cold War but, like the UN, its role must evolve to meet changing
conditions and new threats to human security. Today the idea of "soft power" is an important element of
Canadian foreign policy. This means the use of persuasion and the power of ideas to accomplish what brute
force cannot. It should not, however, be mistaken for weakness. The term "soft power" was coined by Harvard
professor Joseph Nye Jr. He recognized that "hard command power" continues to play a role. One could argue
that "soft power" cannot be effective if not for the contingency of "hard power." Yugoslavia was such a case
where the power of persuasion and other non-violent pressure failed to bring results. That is why it is important
to retain a strong NATO with Canada's active participation. More than 70 percent of Canadians continue to
support NATO and Canada's membership in the Alliance.
As a large territory with a small population, Canada cannot act alone to defend itself - we must act collectively.
Membership in NATO is entirely consistent with the multilateral focus of our foreign policy. By actively
participating in NATO, we gain a seat at the table in the world's most powerful defence alliance. NATO
continues to be essential for the stabilization of Europe and as a bulwark against the "re-nationalization" of
defence policies. The Alliance is a cornerstone of Canada's relations with Europe.
Conclusion
To conclude, let me return to the United Nations. As the world's only multilateral organization whose
membership is nearly universal and whose agenda covers all areas of human activity, participation in the UN is
vital. It is the cornerstone of a rules-based international system, and is where much of the world's multilateral
diplomacy is conducted. Canada, as a middle power, must function multilaterally. We simply cannot go it alone.
Canada has been actively committed to the UN since its founding in 1945 in San Francisco, where Canada
played a key role in drafting its charter. John Humphrey, a Canadian, was the principal author of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights. Canadians have occupied important positions within the UN system, including
the Presidency of the General Assembly (Lester Pearson in 1952-53), and Canada has served six times on the
Security Council. In January 1998, a Canadian, Louise Fréchette, was appointed as the first-ever UN Deputy
Secretary-General.
We are the seventh largest contributor to the UN budget, after the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, the U.K. and
Italy. We always pay our annual contributions - now at nearly US$30 million - in full, on time, and without
conditions.
Any organization of its size and importance can be expected to have flaws and failures, including some serious
ones. Changes are needed, and Canada is at the forefront of working to bring them about. Secretary-General
Annan has repeatedly stated that reform is an ongoing process, not a single event. Many of the reforms already
accomplished were ones originally advocated by Canada. This progress has been achieved through active
membership - not by walking away or refusing to pay our dues. The United Nations is and must remain central
to Canadian foreign policy.
Thank you.
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