CANADA DROPS SPONSORSHIP OF UN ANTI-DEATH PENALTY RESOLUTION

Canada said that it will not co-sponsor a United Nations resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty, breaking a nearly decade-old tradition by a country that has long prided itself on its opposition to capital punishment. The decision comes only a week after the Conservative government said the country would no longer fight to commute the death sentences of Canadians facing execution in foreign democracies. That announcement drew ire from the Liberal opposition, which called the policy shift an example of the government's tacit approval of the death penalty. Canada will vote in favour of the U.N. resolution in December, but will not sponsor it, Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman Catherine Gagnaire said. "There are a sufficient number of co-sponsors already" Gagnaire said. Seventy-four other countries have put their names forward as sponsors, including Britain, Australia and France. The U.N. Human Rights Commission voted every year from 1998 to 2005 on a similar resolution. Canada was a co-sponsor for each of the resolutions, according to Amnesty International.