The UN kicks at Canada's closet

If you believe in the hype, Canada would be described as peace-keeping, friendly or just plain nice. But much of the world is just not buying that bill of goods anymore.
"I think more countries are getting the picture now and starting to understand that Canada isn't the darling of the human rights world that many people think it is or that it maybe used to be," said Ed Bianchi, Indigenous rights program director for KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice.
In the United Nations' Feb. 3 review of Canada, the most pressing issue that was presented was the country's track record in dealing with Aboriginal people.
The UN now reviews countries every four years in an attempt to create more accountability, especially for countries that were able to avoid reviews in the past. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process is an idea that Canada championed. It is perhaps fitting that Canada was one of the UPR's early guinea pigs.
"It was something that Canada called for because it was arguing that the previous process didn't work," Bianchi said
"'It was getting too politicized' is one of the critiques that they had, and they recognized that there was a need for a new process where countries would get reviewed on a regular basis," he said, adding that the new process generated higher interest from what was sometimes a casual turnout for reviews.
One of the concerns the member organizations had about Canada during its review was its failure to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada joined New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. to pan the declaration.
Roughly two-thirds of the member countries to the UN shone their lights on Canada's Indigenous peoples and Bianchi was pleasantly surprised.
"The fact that that so many of the countries that commented on Canada singled out or chose to identify Indigenous rights issues, I thought that was really interesting," said Bianchi.
"You have countries like Ireland, United Kingdom, these are countries that compare to Canada in terms of their human rights record making recommendations about how Canada can improve its own record in terms of how it deals with the human rights of Indigenous peoples," said Bianchi.
While some may look at this lambasting of Canada's image as shocking, Bianchi said only Canada is to blame.
"Canada painted a very rosy picture of the situation here in terms of the human rights situation, but they did it primarily by misrepresenting a lot of the information. It was a very unbalanced presentation," said Bianchi.
Bianchi pointed to the fact that Canada was quick to pat itself on the back for its recent public apology to the residential schools survivors, however they failed to mention that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a whirlwind of controversy itself.
Bianchi also noted Canada's disregard for the implementation of treaties, among a wide array of other blunders in the relationship between Canada and the indigenous peoples here.
Again Bianchi pointed to the refusal to sign the declaration as Canada's real shame.
"It's refusal to ratify or endorse that declaration is really causing damage to its reputation," said Bianchi, adding that it was more than just the refusal to sign it here.
"In other international circles for example (it) refuses to allow the declaration to be used as a standard in other human rights treaties or agreements. So it's actively trying to discredit that document, and the other countries notice that.
Along with the declaration, some of the suggestions for Canada included ensuring the timely and just resolution of outstanding Indigenous land and treaty disputes, and ensuring that there is no racial profiling.
Canada has until June to respond to the recommendations and must choose which suggestion they will take into account and which ones are not feasible, along with sound explanations as to why.
Bianchi said one of the biggest criticisms of Canada is that they never take the UN recommendations under consideration and he hopes that the new format will change that, with a little help from organizations like KAIROS.
"Now the jobs of organizations like the one I work for... and organizations like Windspeaker and other media, is to keep Canada's feet to the fire, so to speak," said Bianchi.
"We've got to remind Canada that they've got an obligation to respond and hopefully it will lead to some kind of genuine and positive change in the way that Canada deals with Indigenous peoples."
Bianchi believes the reason his organization, along with others are so important is that UN recommendations are never anything more than mere recommendations.
"It's great to have this huge system set up, but in the end it doesn't have any teeth. It can't send an army up into Canada and force it to uphold the recommendations."
Bianchi said it's up to vigilant organizations and the hope that Canada's image is important enough to Canada that it will make an attempt to salvage it.
"If they choose to sweep the recommendations under the rug then their reputation is going to take a hit and it's no secret that Canada takes that very seriously," said Bianchi.
"They've only got three months, March, April (and) May, so they've got to start moving on that quickly. We'll know sooner rather than later whether they're going to take it seriously or not."