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View Answers
Question 7: ProsperityHow should Canada take advantage of its location in North America to increase
prosperity while promoting our distinctive identity? |
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| Contributor: | CCIC |
| Date: |
2003-05-01 21:15:08 |
| Answer: |
As noted in the responses to questions 1 and 2, Canada’s foreign policy can better reflect the concerns and priorities of Canadians by explicitly acknowledging the global elimination of poverty as an attainable goal.
Canada can use its position within North America to promote fairness and equity in international relations within the hemisphere. The question is not so much about increasing prosperity as improving the quality and fairness of prosperity. It also needs to be asked whose prosperity question 7 refers to. Canada’s distinctive identity, its security and stability, all benefit from an increase in global prosperity.
Canada should adopt a more consistent multilateral/global perspective on issues such as poverty eradication, international cooperation and people-centred human development in its dealings with the United States. Canada’s cultural and political sovereignty is actually weakened when it fails to clearly articulate principled foreign policy positions even if they differ from those put forward by the United States.
The ability of Canada to maintain its distinctive identity depends in large part on its ability to assert sovereignty and jurisdiction over its own affairs. This ability is significantly compromised by trade agreements that give priority to investor rights over citizens’ rights and that are enforced by adjudication processes that, while binding on Canada, are not part of Canada’s judicial system. The rulings that emerge from such processes (under NAFTA Chapter 11 and the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism, for example) threaten to compromise many of the core values that distinguish Canadian society and thereby compromise the quality of prosperity enjoyed by Canadians. These problems are compounded in developing countries. In general, trade agreements should not undermine national governments’ ability to make appropriate social policy in the public interest of their citizens.
Recommendations in response to Question 7
1. Focus on poverty eradication as an attainable goal.
2. Adopt a consistent multilateral/global perspective on issues such as poverty eradication, international cooperation and people-centred human development in dealings with the United States.
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