Canada Opts Out of Durban III Hatefest

OTTAWA — Canada has lost faith in a “tainted” UN process that was supposed to combat racism — but not in the United Nations as an institution, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Thursday.

Mr. Kenney said the federal government would boycott a planned UN conference on racism in New York in September because it promises to be nothing more than a “hatefest,” directed largely at Israel.

“We obviously continue to believe in the United Nations as an important multilateral forum,” he said. “But we are able to make basic distinctions between good and bad.”

Mr. Kenney said Canada would have nothing to do with the planning of the September conference, which is being held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the first conference on racism, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

“Our government has lost faith in the entire tainted Durban process,” Mr. Kenney said. “Canada will not participate in this charade any longer. We will not lend our country’s good name to a commemoration of what has widely been characterized — indeed across party lines here — as a hatefest.”

He also said the government would not help finance Canadian NGOs to attend the meeting.

The Canadian Jewish Congress said the government made the right call.

“Both Durban I and II, ostensibly aimed at fighting racism, turned out to be little more than concerted anti-Semitic charades that set back the real fight against racism and discrimination by decades,” said Mark J. Freiman, president of the congress, in a statement. “This UN process is fundamentally flawed and by now beyond repair.”