If today the world faces ecological and public health emergencies without the means to coordinate international action to address them, something is clearly wrong in the way its international relations are organized. Canada’s foreign policy has played no small part in bringing matters to this pass. 

Cooperative Foreign Policy for a Multipolar World proposes a radical overhaul of Canada’s foreign policy.

• End Sanctions that harm the Innocent. Criticise and end Canada's acquiescence in the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran and the US inhuman sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
• Resist the annexation. Impose political, military and economic sanctions on Israel for its illegal occupation and settlement.
• For the universal application of international law. Demand that the International Criminal Court (ICC) end its exclusive focus on war crimes committed by the American government’s official enemies. American and other western state war criminals must be made equally accountable for their crimes.
• Stop exporting arms. Cancel the Saudi arms deal and impose a ban on trading in arms with all states that do not comply with UN Human Rights protocols and any states whose governments are engaged in violations of such human rights.
• Total nuclear disarmament. Accede immediately to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
• Resume relations with Iran. Restore diplomatic relations with Iran as desired by Iranian Canadians, ending our complicity in US led efforts to target Iran.

We imagine our foreign policy has promoted peace, human rights and democracy. However, first as part of the British Empire and then in close alliance with the United States, Canada has historically created and reinforced relations of domination in the world order, leading to ecological damage, wars and human rights violations. In today’s multipolar world, such a policy is more dangerous than ever.

We propose its replacement by a foreign policy that genuinely promotes peace, full disarmament, sustainable development, human rights, and democracy. We will replace the departments that currently handle our foreign relations - Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence - with three new departments.

The Department of International Relations will work to promote peace, sustainable development, and a rules-based international order. It will promote the reform of existing international institutions and the development of new ones to reflect the emerging multipolar world. It will foster the creation of international just green wellbeing. It will prioritize organizing international cooperation to respond to public health and ecological emergencies. It will withdraw Canada from militarily aggressive alliances such as NATO. It will seek to reform the United Nations to make it more democratic and free from domination by western countries, and their corporations and philanthropies.

The Department of Peace and National Defence will reorient Canada’s defence policy away from aggressive wars and towards the defence of Canada, disaster relief and humanitarian aid. It will confine foreign military operations to UN-mandated peacekeeping with transparency and democratic control. It will reduce military spending, disentangle Canada from NATO, and take defence production into public ownership.

The Department of Trade and Development will integrate these two areas, acknowledging trade relations have historically determined the inequitable distribution of wealth in the world and so cannot be separated from development assistance. It will design a new policy paradigm committed to promoting international equality, as well as sustainability in both development and ecology, while recognizing national economic sovereignty.

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