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Question 13: ConclusionPlease respond to the paper as a whole. |
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| Contributor: | 1906 |
| Date: |
2003-05-01 19:18:48 |
| Answer: |
It is interesting that a major Dialogue on Foreign Policy gives minimal attention to the United Nations. Canada should continue to give strong support to the UN as the key multi-lateral institution.
In general the sections on Security and on Prosperity were narrowly defined with no scope for integrating these with values. Only when our rhetoric on values is integrated into our actions on security and prosperity can we move out of a stale rut into an imaginative new vision.
Security must be seen wholistically as human security, and as being sustained primarily by non-military means. Only within this broad context should the specific role of the military be considered.
The section on Prosperity mindlessly promotes prosperity for Canadians (as opposed to everyone) within a context of competition (rather than mutual benefit)and an assumption of infinitely sustainable growth (a clear impossibility). Current economic agreements are uncritically praised as if the benefits were already shared by all. This assumes that we should have more of the same.
We need to begin with the maxim that economies should serve people rather than the reverse. And with the incontrovertible fact that there are natural limits to the extent of economic activity which can be sustained.
The perpetual growth mentality must be replaced with a focus on how to work within natural limits to sustain an economic livelihood for all. Increasing prosperity in not the point. We have more than enough wealth in the world for everyone now. But if we persist in trying to increase it, we risk losing it all as we continue to degrade the very basis of our wealth--the ability of nature to supply our physical needs.
Our whole focus should be less on increasing prosperity and more on sharing it, and sustaining it in harmony with the non-human occupants of this planet who are the source of what wealth we have.
This means a complete re-think of current and projected trade agreements and of the way in which we deal with developing countries on such issues as debt, trade and the environment. |
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