"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 these pages recently.
So, has Prime Minister Stephen 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 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, a Uyghur-Canadian presently imprisoned in northwestern China.
Having made these concerns clear to 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. There were frequent visits to China all right, but much smoke and mirrors on both human rights and trade. There were apologetic explanations to the Chinese (with a few ingratiating anti-American sideswipes thrown in) that it was necessary to say something on human rights for consumption back home. So, please, "let us say something" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and help us get it over with as quickly and innocuously as possible so we can get on to the real reason for being here - trade! "Trade" including the staged contract-signing ceremonies that 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 out Mr. Harper and to realize they were dealing with something and someone quite 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 better yet, let's first revisit Kyoto.
It has become clear that when Mr. Chrétien's envoys went to Kyoto with much fanfare in 1997 to sign the Kyoto Protocol, 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 co-operation implementation of the protocol was impossible.
So what, then, was the intent? It was to climb onto 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.
And Copenhagen? Is there still a whiff of hypocrisy around some of the Canadian positions taken there? Sadly, yes. Toronto's Mayor David Miller was on stage professing to be embarrassed, as a Canadian, by the CO2-belching oil-sands plants in Alberta, while proudly proclaiming Toronto's environmental purity.
He must have hoped 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 the GTA accounts for roughly 43 per cent of the 197 megatonnes of GHG emitted per year in Ontario, primarily from cars and trucks, electricity and heat generation, residential, manufacturing and industrial sources.)
Both of these emissions figures suggest we must 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 Mr. Harper toward Copenhagen with that taken by Mr. Chrétien on Kyoto, and even that of Mr. Miller.
Mr. Harper went to Copenhagen 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 Mr. Harper on his recent visits to Beijing, Shanghai and Copenhagen. But surely the modesty, honesty and transparency he demonstrated on these issues is preferable to policies tainted by hypocrisy 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.