During his recent, celebrated speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged that “the story of the rules-based international order was partially false” because the rules tended to be upheld or ignored depending on which state was violating them. He also stated that Canada would aim to be “both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.”
In hindsight, it would be generous to describe the prime minister’s statement as “partially false,” given Carney’s immediate show of support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the territorial integrity of Venezuela and now Iran — attacks carried out in violation of both the United Nations Charter and, for that matter, United States law. Six weeks after Carney’s speech in Davos, it’s clear that the rules-based international order remains dead, while hypocrisy is alive and well.
Bart Hawkins Kreps, Bowmanville, Ont.
Lloyd Axworthy, the former minister of foreign affairs, is right to criticize Carney for his decision to back the U.S. and Israel’s bombing of Iran. By supporting “Operation Epic Fury,” as America is calling the campaign, Canada is only helping to further dismantle the international rules-based order that the prime minister invoked in his speech in Davos. Using military force against a sovereign state absent a clearly articulated justification or objective, and without having given diplomacy a fair chance or come to a collective decision with the UN Security Council, constitutes a clear abandonment of international laws and norms. At the World Economic Forum, Carney emphasized Canada’s commitments to the values of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as to avoiding the use of military force except when consistent with the UN Charter. How are Canadians to believe his words now? The prime minister’s endorsement of this war is unnecessary and reckless.
Pamela Mulligan, Grimsby, Ont.
I commend Axworthy for his sternly reproachful op-ed, as well as Justin Ling for his piece published the same day. Carney seems blinkered by trade concerns. How else to account for his misguided, weak-kneed public statements about Trump’s war in Iran? As Axworthy and Ling both correctly assert, taking concrete actions to help free Iranians from their country’s oppressive regime is desirable, but it must be done within the bounds of international law.
Trump leaves me so incandescent with rage that I can’t bear to hear him without shouting at whatever screen he appears on. His haughty contemptuousness and delusional self-assurance would be comical if the stakes weren’t so high for the world. By rights, the president should be arrested, hauled off and convicted for his assorted crimes, and then put unceremoniously behind bars. Instead, serious people like Carney are compelled to hold their tongues and behave with deference. It’s all so farcical, yet it’s a farce without laughs.
Oliver Lenhardt, Toronto
I guess Carney has decided Canada needs to put its sign back up in the window: his recent statement on the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran marks a sad and cowardly retreat from the views he expressed in Davos. There, he argued that the world’s middle powers had to stick together in defence of certain fundamental principles, including “the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter.” We now see what all that amounts to when the rubber hits the road — and when 350,000 Iranian Canadians march up Yonge Street. Center-left voters have been cutting Carney a lot of slack on climate change and Indigenous rights, but I no longer trust his allegedly good intentions.
Jerry Ginsburg, Markham, Ont.
Trust lost is very difficult to regain. I predict tumultuous times ahead in Mr. Carney's relationship with Canadians.
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