Canada's New Friends

From Deceivin' Stephen on down, the Cons seldom hesitate to try to undermine the United Nations by complaining that countries with questionable human rights record have too much influence. But when it comes time to seek allies in trying to shoot down a declaration of aboriginal rights, suddenly the Cons believe that the more abuses, the merrier:

Amnesty International is accusing Canada of stalling a United Nations negotiation on the rights of indigenous peoples...

It notes that Canada and Russia were the only two members of the 47-country Human Rights Council to vote against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in June 2006.

Amnesty says that since the Conservative government came to power in January 2006, it has been lobbying the UN General Assembly to vote against the declaration, which the previous Liberal government helped draft.

The group contends Ottawa has been encouraging abusive states in Africa, Asia and Latin America to oppose the declaration.