Read the Green Party of Ontario's 2011 election platform.

BGM Policy Resolutions Part 2: Foreign Affairs

Submitted by Dave Bagler on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 11:17

Now on to part two of the policy motions: Foreign Affairs. Here is a link to Vision Green for reference. In the end I expect that this will be an 11 part series, five parts on governance, five on policy and one on councilors at large. Also if you haven't gone through yet take a minute to look over the previous resolutions:

Governance	Policy
part one - Council Structure and Obligations	part one - Economy and Finance
part two - General Meeting and Party Procedure	part two - you're reading it
part three - Shadow Cabinet and Policy Development	Wednesday
part four - Leadership	Thursday
part five - Regional Organizing - EDAs	Friday

Resolution code	Resolution title and my thoughts on the resolution
G10-p07	New GPC NATO Policy
G10-p07	I like this one in theory but I think the policy is too broad. I don't think it would be possible to get all the NATO members (read: USA) to agree to all 3 requirements. Taking that into account this resolution essentially says we're withdrawing from NATO. I'll vote to work shop but I think the policy needs to limit its scope to requirement 2 and perhaps include an exemption for the DMZ on the Korean peninsula.
G10-p09	Recognizing Palestinian Products as Palestinian
G10-p09	WHEREAS the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not black and white. WHEREAS the Green Party of Canada has been accused of being anti-Israel. WHEREAS Canadians don't expect the GPC to form a government and therefore have little interest in our foreign policy to begin with. WHEREAS this is really just a big can of worms we don't need right now. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT we leave this issue alone, red card.
G10-p22	The Olympics
G10-p22	This resolution sets some criteria that an Olympic bid must address in order to receive the support of the Green Party of Canada. I'm not going to support this one for a couple reasons. 1) It's will construed by those who care (and they will be few) as us being anti-Olympics. 2) I'm not sure Canadians really care what the GPC thinks about Olympic bids.
G10-p23	Robin Hood Tax
G10-p23	Let me see, create a new tax that punishes banks that didn't fail because banks in other countries did fail. Then name the tax in such away that we cast the banks as villains. What a great idea... Look even if you support what this tax is trying to do you have to agree that it's a stupid name. Not to mention that our banks didn't fail. I'm for a Tobin tax but this one goes too far. It's proponents are using the fear of a government bailout to gain traction. Canadian Banks didn't need a government bailout due to smart regulations. Fear mongering is wrong when the right does it. It's equally wrong when the left does it.
G10-p30	UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons
G10-p30	This resolution calls for the creation of a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons. The UN General Assembly called for one in 2009. Sounds like a good idea, I'm for it.