OTTAWA

Canada should look long in the mirror before advising Egypt on democracy or demanding accountability from the developing world. A sorry record defending one and delivering the other strips credibility and exposes hypocrisy.

Actions do speak louder than words. International expediency and domestic secrecy reduce Ottawa’s voice to a whisper when Prime Minister Stephen Harper promotes political freedoms for Egyptians and demands more maternal aid transparency from the rest of the world.

Rarely has the mismatch between behaviour and principles been so obvious. Cairo protesters have no reason to take Harper’s Monday support for Middle East democracy seriously. As on the maternal health issue he championed last week, the Prime Minister is talking loudly and carrying a broken stick.

In 2006, the newly elected Harper joined then-U.S. president George W. Bush and European Union leaders in refusing to accept the Palestinian ballot-box decision to oust the inept PLO in favour of Islamic fundamentalist Hamas. That was wrong in so many ways.

It missed that Palestinians acted like voters everywhere in punishing corrupt government. It mistook the symptom of terrorism for the disease of oppression. And it positioned Western nations as supporting self-determination — as long as the local choice safeguards foreign interests.

Short-term Western pragmatism has now run headlong into long-term Middle East realities. In sacrificing rights and liberties to security and oil priorities, those who should have been promoting freedom and pushing relentlessly for a regional peace settlement recklessly let grievances simmer

Now that they’re boiling, the dangers are obvious, pressing and sadly ironic. Power vacuums forming or feared across the Middle East threaten those same security and economic priorities the West, including Canada, willingly compromised principles to protect.

Enormous question marks now loom over Egypt’s calming peace with Israel, safe passage through the Suez Canal and the future of authoritarian regimes throughout the oil-soaked Gulf. Some will be answered quickly, others not for weeks, months or years.

Not long ago Canada would have been expected to play a supporting role in coping with a roiling Middle East crisis. As it has done without fail in the past, Canada would now be taking its place at the Security Council — still the world body best able to impose binding remedies — to provide the political moderation and policy innovation that made this country a respected model.

Times have changed. In the Middle East, Canadian policy is skewed to winning votes at home rather than advancing the honest-broker concessions Israelis and Palestinians must make to achieve a two-state peace. In Africa, the continent that would benefit most from improving women’s health, Canada’s development assistance freeze so shook faith in a once reliable friend that the continent overwhelmingly supported colonial pariah Portugal over Canada in last fall’s contest for the Security Council seat.

Nations are judged by what they do, not what they say. Canada’s foreign policy, as well as the shattered Conservative commitment to accountability at home, diminishes solemn pronouncements to meaningless bromides.

Delayed too long, Ottawa’s immediate effort is helping Canadian travellers and expatriates pay their way home safely. If and when the Egyptian dust settles, the federal government needs to move beyond rescue to the realignment of actions with rhetoric.

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To be credible in the Middle East, the federal government must promote democracy as an inalienable right, not a situational privilege to be shared with some but not all. To be taken seriously internationally, it must demonstrate that accountability begins at home.

James Travers’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

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