The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an agency of the United Nations, has been based in Montreal since its establishment in 1947.
Canada is currently in negotiations to keep ICAO in Montreal through 2036. Reports last week said Qatar made a bid at an April 22 meeting of the agency's members to move the headquarters to Doha when its lease in Montreal expires in 2016.
"Minister Baird will fight tooth and nail to keep ICAO in its rightful home of Montreal," Baird's office wrote to CBC News on Thursday morning.
"Minister Baird spoke to the prime minister of Qatar twice in the last week about this issue. He has contacted counterparts in other countries seeking their support. And he is working with representatives of the provincial and municipal governments as they, too, will have a role to play," his office added.
"Our government is working to keep ICAO in Montreal – its natural home," the foreign minister said.
Critical vote this fall
Sixty per cent of the 191 member countries of the organization would need to vote in favour of the proposed move during its next annual meeting in late September.
ICAO spokesman Anthony Philbin told Reuters last week that to his knowledge, this is the first official request to move the permanent seat.
The rationale for countries backing the move include both business and political reasons.
Quebec newspaper La Presse obtained Qatari briefing notes that suggested Montreal was too far from Europe and Asia and had cold winters. Canada made it hard for delegates to get visas, the report said, and Qatar argues Canadian taxes are too high.
The report suggested Qatar has offered to build ICAO a brand new headquarters and cover all the organization's costs if it approved the deal – taking advantage of the deep pockets the oil-rich, Gulf state has used to successfully bid for other international business and prestigious events such as the 2022 World Cup.
Workers' rights could also be a concern if the organization responsible for maintaining safety and employment standards for the aviation industry moved to Qatar.
Move to 'rights-free zone' 'defies belief': labour leaders
Earlier this week, the general secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation said the possible move "defies belief."
"How can an organization that has to defend the rights and safety of workers and passengers be moved to a state whose citizens’ pleas for democracy are answered with batons and buckshot?” said David Cockroft.
“Emerging out of the poisonous cloud of allegations of corruption and vote buying surrounding the World Cup decision, this could almost be an April Fool’s Day joke," added the international labour body's president, Paddy Crumlin, in an April 30 statement. "Can the Qatari government really expect to transplant a vital United Nations organization and its staff to a nation that is a byword for democratic deficit?
“The UN cannot bend to the power of the Riyal at a time when ordinary Qataris’ fights for rights are met with massive repression. It’s doubly outrageous when thousands of staff at Qatar Airways are denied the fundamental right to union membership enshrined by the UN,” Crumlin said.
The accepted standards of the UN's International Labour Organization, a sister body of the ICAO, don't apply in Gulf states, labour leaders warn. The general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Sharan Burrow, calls Qatar a "rights-free zone."
More than 500 ICAO employees are based in Montreal. In addition, the foreign delegations based in the city and the business traffic it generates contributes to its value for both Canada's aviation industry specifically and Montreal's economy generally.
In addition to its Canadian headquarters, ICAO operates seven regional offices around the world. The Middle East regional office is in Cairo, Egypt.
Palestinian slight could cost votes
The regional politics of the Middle East may also be part of the diplomatic fight that lies ahead for Baird.
A report in The Globe and Mail newspaper Thursday links the votes of Arab countries in favour of moving the ICAO to an unhappiness with Canada's close ties to Israel and tough stance against the Palestinian Authority's moves towards recognition as its own state, a direction Canada strongly opposed at the UN last fall.
During Parliament's Easter Break, Baird toured the Middle East extensively, meeting not only with his Israeli allies but also a variety of Arab leaders in an attempt to tend and mend fences.
Canada boasted of diplomatic progress throughout the trip. For example, during his visit to Abu Dhabi, Baird attempted to show Canada had moved past a dispute over airline landing rights and visa requirements with the United Arab Emirates as he staged a friendly Tim Hortons "coffee break" with his U.A.E. counterpart.
But another coffee he enjoyed in East Jerusalem at the office of former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni has created a whole new diplomatic headache with Arab countries. Although Baird argued afterwards that it shouldn't matter where they met for coffee to discuss her new role as a peace negotiator with the Palestinians, venturing into East Jerusalem to meet an Israeli official was a symbolic slight in the eyes of the Palestinians and their allies.
Palestinian officials summoned Canada's envoy to protest the meeting.
The Globe and Mail report said that the day after Qatar suggested moving the ICAO headquarters from Montreal, Arab ambassadors at the UN in New York used a meeting on Palestinian issues to lobby for votes against Canada. But the votes of Arab nations alone would not be enough to move the office to Doha.
Security Council seat loss a precedent?
Qatar would need to find sympathetic or like-minded views in other countries. But a sour taste for Canada among UN member countries would not be unprecedented.
In 2010, Canada failed to garner enough support to win a seat on the Security Council, which some attributed to the Harper government's shifts in foreign policy. Baird first said in 2011 and confirmed again this week that the Harper government would not campaign in the future to regain a seat on the influential body.
Speaking to reporters after question period Wednesday, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who represents a Montreal riding, linked the Security Council failure to the diplomatic challenge ahead for Canada as it fights to keep the ICAO office.
"I am concerned about the level of disengagement from multilateral organizations that this government is pushing forward," Trudeau said, noting Canada's "traditionally and historically" strong international role.
"There is something going very wrong with this government’s approach to international affairs," he said. "That’s why the move by Qatar to steal or to woo away the important UN regulatory body that’s established in Montreal on aviation is for me another example of the fact that this government is not serious about leadership in the world, which is something that is very important to many Canadians."
"We are extremely concerned by the negligence and incompetence of Conservatives when it comes to defending the ICAO in Montreal. It is the only major headquarters of the United Nations [in Canada,] NDP Leader Tom Mulcair told reporters in French last week.
"ICAO contributes an estimated $100 million annually to the city's economy. We can not afford the Conservative mismanagement," the NDP leader, who also represents a Montreal riding, said.
"They do not stop attacking the UN. So it puts them in an awkward position to try to retain a UN agency," Mulcair said.
Original Article
Source: CBC
Author: cbc
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